Movie Review ‘Bergman Island’ Plays Lightly with Director’s Spirit, Style

A film about people sitting around obsessing over Ingmar Bergman may sound less than scintillating, but I’d rate Bergman Island a considerable improvement over most Ingmar Bergman movies. (Exceptions: Fanny and Alexander and Smiles of a Summer Night, his two most uncharacteristic efforts.)

The latest from French writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve, Bergman Island — which will show at the New York Film Festival ahead of an October 15 theatrical release — is a movie-within-a-movie with a resolution that raises more questions than it answers. So: classic art-house ambiguity that leaves the audience to suss out exactly what has happened, although the possibilities aren’t especially interesting. The film serves as a light, not particularly deep gloss on Bergman, which is amusing because it’s in part a satire of lightweights who have turned the recluse’s remote island of Fårö into a highbrow tourist trap. (For a penetrating consideration of Bergman, the piece to read is this one by Nathan Shields in Commentary, one of the finest pieces of criticism I’ve ever encountered.)

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Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

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A film about people sitting around obsessing over Ingmar Bergman may sound less than scintillating, but I’d rate Bergman Island a considerable improvement over most Ingmar Bergman movies. (Exceptions: Fanny and Alexander and Smiles of a Summer Night, his two most uncharacteristic efforts.)

The latest from French writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve, Bergman Island — which will show at the New York Film Festival ahead of an October 15 theatrical release — is a movie-within-a-movie with a resolution that raises more questions than it answers. So: classic art-house ambiguity that leaves the audience to suss out exactly what has happened, although the possibilities aren’t especially interesting. The film serves as a light, not particularly deep gloss on Bergman, which is amusing because it’s in part a satire of lightweights who have turned the recluse’s remote island of Fårö into a highbrow tourist trap. (For a penetrating consideration of Bergman, the piece to read is this one by Nathan Shields in Commentary, one of the finest pieces of criticism I’ve ever encountered.)