‘Bergman Island’ Review: A Refined and Intimate Look Into the Creative Process of a Female Filmmaker
Bergman Island. IFCFilms.
2021 has blessed cinephiles everywhere with marvelous new work created by female filmmakers from all parts of the world, including Bergman Island, the latest film from French writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve. Romantic and melancholic in tone, metaphorical and referential in structure, Bergman Island has quickly become one of Hansen-Løve’s most celebrated works as it has traveled the film festival circuit this year before beginning its theatrical release on October 15th. Starring Vicky Krieps, Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth, and Ander Danielsen Lie, Bergman Island serves largely as self-referential work for the director, following an up-and-coming director who travels with her filmmaker partner to attend an artist residency on Fårö Island - a place famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman found great inspiration and shot many films - where they both work on their newest scripts. Bergman Island serves as a largely auto-fictional work for director Hansen-Løve, who intriguingly uses the film to explore her relationships of the past as well as her creative process.
Bergman Island focuses on Chris (Vicky Krieps, of Phantom Thread fame), a blooming filmmaker attending an artist residency on the secluded Fårö Island, located in the Baltic Sea. Also taking part in the residency is her romantic partner and the father of her child, Tony (played by Tim Roth), an older, more established filmmaker than Chris. Both Chris and Tony plan to use their time on the peaceful island to write new scripts for upcoming projects. Soon after arriving, Tony comfortably falls into conceiving his story and writing his script like it’s second nature, while Chris finds much more difficulty tapping into her creative process and suffers from writer’s block. The legacy of Bergman casts a massive shadow over the entire island of Fårö - fueling Tony’s inspiration while dimming Chris’. This contrasting experience with their creative development leads to Chris questioning the romantic and creative support and consideration she receives from Tony, eventually leading her to reflect on her past relationships and how they’ve affected her entire life and career. This introspection eventually leads to Chris conceptualizing a script loosely based around a younger version of herself - portrayed by Mia Wasikowska - and an unrequited first love. As the film submerges into Chris’ evolving screenplay, Bergman Island seamlessly shifts into a profound portrayal of Hansen-Løve’s own real-life experiences as a lover and filmmaker.
Bergman Island combines intricate storytelling with skilled performances to make for highly intellectual filmmaking that will surely entice viewers who can relate to the film’s thoughtful viewpoints on the conflicts of love and creativity. The film’s visual style is unpretentious, with a largely unmoving camera that takes its time focusing on the meditative landscapes of the island as well as the faces and interactions of the film’s contemplative characters. French Cinematographer Denis Lenoir takes advantage of Fårö’s natural beauty and simplicity, creating a warm, sunny look that permeates the entire film and reflects the picturesqueness of a Scandinavian summer. Bergman Island’s acting achievements are elevated by the work of both Krieps and Wasikowska, both embodying versions of the film’s director with immense depth and consideration, expressing thoughtful performances of young women facing the blurred lines of life, love, and creation. Hansen-Løve’s experience and skill as both a writer and director are greatly tested with Bergman Island’s meta form of a film-within-a-film, which could unravel into shambles in the wrong director’s hands but Hansen-Løve can convey the complicated narrative to audiences with clarity and great satisfaction.
Bergman Island. IFCFilms.
Following up early films such as Goodbye First Love, Eden, and Things to Come, Mia Hansen-Løve reaches new levels of achievement with Bergman Island through its intimate and vulnerable narrative. Famously coupled with the long-respected French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, Hansen-Løve seemingly channels much of her past through the main female characters of Bergman Island. This method of personal filmmaking has been seen through the works of many famous male directors - films such as 8 ½, Pain and Glory, and The Hand of God all channel the real-life experiences of their creators - but Bergman Island serves as one of the few examples of auto-fictional filmmaking from a female director in recent memory. An extraordinarily compelling and delicate film, Bergman Island should be seen by movie-lovers this fall.
4/5