#ekdahl

Fanny and Alexander tells the story of the a large, wealthy family, the Ekdahls. The title characters are children, brother and sister, and despite being the title characters, they aren’t necessarily the central characters. Their parents own a theatre company and they live together in a large house, constantly bustling with guests and celebrations and cheerful servants. It’s a generally pleasant life.

The first part, which consists of a brief prologue and the first act, primarily tells the story of the Ekdahl family Christmas celebration. We join the Ekdahls for a massive, joyous feast, endless toasts, songs, dances, secret trysts, arguments, pillow fights, and more. This first act seems designed primarily to introduce us to the family. Fanny is quiet, but pleasant, while Alexander is brooding and emotional. Their parents are the true central figures, at least in this first part, with everyone else swirling around them. Their father Oscar is the leader of the theatre company, a kind and eloquent man. Their mother Emilie is playful and creative. Their father has two brothers, Gustav Adolf, a lecherous and playful fool and Carl an angry drunk who belittles his wife constantly. There is also the matriarch of the family, somewhat severe but ultimately goodhearted, and a seemingly endless parade of children and family friends and servants.

Part one gives us a look at the happy, functioning family, only to send everything tumbling down in the next part. When Oscar dies suddenly of a stroke, everything falls apart for the Ekdahls. Emilie is left to care for the theatre company, but her heart is not in it, as it all just reminds her of her late husband. Eventually the loneliness gets the best of her, and she moves on, marrying the local bishop, who turns out to be a severe, intense man without much love in him. He forces Emilie, Fanny and Alexander to leave their lavish home to move in with him in his stark, plain house where he lives with his sister and several other family members, all just as intense and unpleasant as he is. 

Part three picks up several months later. Emilie, Fanny and Alexander are all still trapped in the bishop’s home. And the fact that they are trapped is becoming all to clear to the three Ekdahls. The bishop is increasingly cruel, attempting to assert his dominance at every turn and constantly infuriated by Alexander’s resistance. Emilie has even admitted to herself what is going on in the bishop’s house. She visits her former mother-in-law and tells her that she has asked for a divorce, but the bishop refuses to grant her request and threatens her and her children when she asks.

Soon after, a family friend of the Ekdahls visits the bishop and, while buying a large trunk from the bishop, manages to sneak the children out of his house. From here, we begin the rebellion against the cold cruelty of the bishop. Gustav Adolf and Carl have a meeting with the bishop where the brothers take turns threatening the bishop as he shoots back threats of his own. It is an intense conversation, and one of the most joyous in the film. After previously seeing Alexander attempt to stand up to the bishop, only to be beaten and verbally abused and locked in the attic, it’s especially exciting to see the bishop being picked on by someone his own size.

Unfortunately, the meeting goes nowhere, and things are left the way they were previously, with the bishop insisting that Fanny and Alexander be returned to his control while the Ekdahls petition for a divorce for Emilie. Eventually, Emilie attempts to free herself, dosing the bishop with powerful sleeping pills and fleeing the house. Before he passes out he threatens that he will follow the Ekdahls to the ends of the earth and ruin them all. Luckily for the whole family, it never comes to that. In a bit of a deus ex machina, the bishop’s sick mother knocks over a lantern in her sleep, setting herself on fire. In her panic, she runs into the bishop’s room where he is passed out from the sleeping pills. The fire is passed on to him, and he ultimately succumbs to the flames.

The film ends as it began, with an Ekdahl family feast. They are celebrating the freedom of Emilie, Fanny and Alexander, and the birth of Emilie’s fourth child. In a rare turn for Bergman, the film ends on an uplifting, positive note. Things seem to be working out for the Ekdahls once again. The future looks bright.

Fanny and Alexander has one of Bergman’s most compelling stories, along with some of his most interesting, complex characters. The Ekdahl family is full of unique characters, but none more fascinating than the titular Alexander. Alexander is clearly a Bergman analogue, with a rich inner life and a refusal to give in to authority. He speaks to ghosts throughout the series. It is left unsaid whether these ghosts are real or a part of Alexander’s imagination, but it really doesn’t matter either way. Meanwhile, the bishop is one of the most terrifying villains in all of Bergman’s filmography. He’s a cold, hard man and, most frighteningly, believes himself to be completely in the right. He has God on his side; he can do no wrong. But to the viewer, he’s never anything more than a sinister villain straight out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. Which is why it is so satisfying to see Alexander or the Ekdahl brothers stand up to him, and even more satisfying when he is burned alive for his sins.