Fanny and Alexander (1982), Ingmar Bergman

A 5-hour-plus drama of epic proportions intended as its director’s swan song, Ingmar Bergman’s 1982 Fanny and Alexander focus on sadness, frustration and bitterness, but above all, the dichotomy between art and religion, all understood through the perspective of two children.

Never since The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Flemming) has a film changed its tonality so drastically, so dramatically as Fanny and Alexander. A canvas painted with colourful strokes of reds and oranges and greens and blues suddenly loses its joie de vivre and become almost monochrome with melancholy greys and discoloured pastels. What is initially noise and joy and dreams transforms itself into discipline and austerity and severity.