"The picture revolves around an American filmmaking couple who retreat to the island for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place that inspired Bergman. As the summer and their screenplays advance, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur against the backdrop of the Island's wild landscape.... (Full plot summary below)
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"The picture revolves around an American filmmaking couple who retreat to the island for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place that inspired Bergman. As the summer and their screenplays advance, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur against the backdrop of the Island's wild landscape.
Leave your thoughts about Bergman Island.
| Little White LiesLillian CrawfordRather than an attempt at directorial mimicry, Bergman Island is a unique vision from one of the greatest directors working today. |
| San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonOne of the most playful films about cinema in recent memory, and even with its angst, is more joyful than any film Bergman made on the island. |
| The TelegraphRobbie CollinA late narrative gambit made me worry that Hansen-Løve was pushing her conceit a little too far into the realm of the meta, but it pays off with thrilling clarity and elegance. |
| The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Chandler LevackWhile the film first regales us in sightseeing tours of the scenic Faro Island, the film ends in an unexpected wallop of heartbreak as Chris begins to describe the film-within-a-film she’s writing in her notebook to her unattentive partner. |
| The New York TimesA.O. ScottIt’s a movie that isn’t quite sure whether it wants to be one, or which one it wants to be. Which makes it feel like more than just a movie. |
| Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangEven Hansen-Løve’s characteristically light, unassuming touch feels like a playful rejoinder to the weight of the Bergman mystique, a refusal to let him dictate the terms of the argument. |
| Vanity FairRichard LawsonThe gap between fact and fiction is where Bergman Island finds its murmuring potency. Its maybe unanswerable questions of self and creation give Hansen-Løve’s finespun film a sneaking weight. Perhaps one point of art is the guessing. |
| IndieWireDavid EhrlichBergman Island is a heart-stoppingly poignant stunner all the same — one beating inside a body of work that has always been seasick with the bittersweet vertigo that comes from looking at the past through the smudged lens of memory and imagination. |
| The Hollywood ReporterJon FroschDelicate, droll and imbued with a haunting, understated wistfulness, Bergman Island wears its layers so lightly it may take you a while to notice just how much it’s got going on. |
| RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyThe finish line in Bergman Island is of the opaque kind. But anything else would have done Hansen-Løve’s wistful sleepwalk through memory, time and cinema injustice. Her film is less a direct, clear-cut homage to Bergman, and more a searching exploration of reality and art in the way they mirror, propel and feed on one another, washing ashore remembrances both dreamy and lifelike. |
