Journalist Marie Nyreröd directed a trio of hour-long interviews for Swedish television, and Criterion’s DVD (available separately, and with the 2009 re-release of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal) presents the interviews in a linear feature-length edit for the first time for English language audiences. (Naturally, uber-fans will want the longer version, but let’s not go there.)

Beautifully shot in HD by Arne Carlsson, Bergman Island has Nyreröd visiting the director on his secluded home on the island of Faro, and largely consists of several segments wherein Bergman reflects upon his life, career, and the women in his life. The tone is very intimate, and most of the pair’s conversation happens in and around Bergman’s beautiful stretch-cabin.

There are arguably two stars in this film: Bergman, and his house, and the two are inseparable, because his relaxed tone is completely in tune with the beach vista that’s visible from the house’s entire beach side.

A person’s home is a reflection of the creative energies at play, and it’s perhaps surprising that a man whose films often detail emotional vulnerabilities lives in a house with warm wooden textures, subdued colours, and earthy textiles; the furniture is simple, the house décor is basic, and yet there’s a warmness that radiates from the home on an isolated island encircled by gravely beaches, somewhat dangerous rocky outcroppings, and small clusters of flora desperately clinging to life in the harsh environment.

The house, which had never been photographed in such detail, is also a repository of Bergman’s past, which includes objects from his parents – a grandfather clock, a pocket watch – as well as family photo albums and a film archive. Nyreröd was given a seemingly near-free reign to explore the grounds, and it’s rather amusing to hear Bergman describe his own surprise in finding Nyreröd quietly flipping through a family album.

As prior docs and interviews with Bergman have shown, the man is an enigma as well as an artist perpetually compelled to investigate human relations in film and theatre, and it’s no shock Bergman chose to direct one more film for Swedish TV in spite of his decision to retire from film directing after the Oscar-winning Fanny and Alexander (1978).

(It’s perhaps a matter of semantics, but a telefilm is still a feature-length production involving the directing of actors for the camera, so while he never made another theatrical film, his subsequent work in TV still qualifies as movies.)

Bergman Island is the perfect coda to the director’s career because it presents him in twilight, recalling relations, dreams, traumas, lies, and career anecdotes (some very funny, such as being branded as ‘difficult’ by the cast and crew of his first film, Crisis), as well as specific phases where he explored comedy and social injustice.

The director also answers questions about being an absentee father – by choice, with a rationalization that's not exactly endearing – as well as a severe moment of infidelity, and how these aspects of his life inspired the writing of Sarabande (2003) and Scenes from a Marriage (1973), respectively.

Bergman fans will probably recognize most anecdotes from prior interviews, if not printed works (including the director’s autobiography), but there’s something soothing, if not assuring in knowing the master filmmaker didn’t spend his final years shacked up in a cabin, staring at the ocean, withering away.

In his retirement, he kept his attention on theatrical ventures, as well as screenplays, and perhaps Bergman provides the viewer with the most graceful final image: seated at the edge of a specially constructed fireplace, a glass of wine in hand, watching the snow blow up against the wide windows that frame his view of the ocean, while the amber fire crackles a few feet away.

Criterion’s DVD also includes a very helpful career bio from Peter Cowie, which has the veteran film author and critic narrating an overview with stills and clips of Bergman’s films, although viewers should be careful as some of the film extracts contain spoiler material.

Bergman Island is less factual than prior docs, but it’s an important document for fans, as well as those curious about the man who crafted so many memorable dramas. Those interested in further details on how the interview series came to be should check out the linked Time Out interview with Marie Nyreröd below.

© 2009 Mark R. Hasan