Fanny Och Alexander

Ingmar Bergman - 1982
It is Bergman's not hugely innovative, but by this stage deeply refined technique of some longer stuff mixed with a moving camera, on the face often, switching usually in cuts but sometimes in tracks face to face. We also have Nykvist manning the helm. His use of colour doesn't so much strike me but his masterful use of shadow remains; impressive, but there is a slight sense it is black and white work. Nevertheless, he knows how to film hands, and the shadows on the chin (nevermuind the gamma rays when the face turns towards the window).
Bergman is music, chamber music, Brahms (clarinet sonatas perhaps). He is smooth music, pre-modernist late 19th Century, with his moves of emphasis and the quick changes in tone, which can be ridiculous but also have a melodramatic truth. It is slightly, and perhaps entirely, that Bergman can't make up his mind; which is thematically one of the key ideas of his films.
Another hugely long late Bergman, 'Like Scenes From A Marriage' (which may not be the worst film I have ever seen, but is probably the most miserable to watch), but changes in tone mean I really rather enjoyed this. There is the mix of celebration, a little sickening but fine, and real brutality.
Thematically, it invoked chidlhood but expressive focusses on individual tastes, images, sounds, ways of looking at things. Bergman always wants to get closer, study the face, study the situation. Also, I was completely on the side of the Bishop. A good man, a certain man, which is an anathema to Bergman. Harsh, yes, but the Christmas we first see is after all the rich luxuriating distastefully, though the joy should be recognised. It is a tough thing to balance.