Streaming: Scenes from a marriage in ‘Bergman Island’

Hansen-Love’s latest a rumination on legendary Swedish filmmaker and the creative process.|

Now showing

“Bergman Island” is streaming on Hulu. Rated R. Running time 1:52. Visit hulu.com.

In “Bergman Island,” filmmakers Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth) get to sleep in the very bed used in Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage.” Those who have seen the monumental series from the director (the one that led to thousands of Swedish divorces) will recall that each episode of “Scenes” ended with a moment of devastation that swiftly cut to the lovely landscape of Fårö Island while the credits rolled.

Chris and Tony seem to be in a rocky patch when they land on Fårö to participate in a fancy retreat with some other Bergmaniacs. Chris is too stressed to work at the master’s desk—it’s “too nice, too beautiful”—so she decamps for an alcove above a windmill. Suffering from writer’s block at the start of the trip, she feels like she’s trying to draw “blood from a stone.” As a comfort, Tony tells her, “No one’s expecting ‘Persona.’” He makes horror films and dives right into his work, pumping out a 110-page script for a bondage-inspired slasher in a matter of days.

One evening, the pair have a lengthy discussion about which Bergman to screen in 35mm—it’s just like trying to agree on which Netflix title to watch! They finally settle on “Cries and Whispers,” perfect for lightening a dark mood. The film is jammed with winking references to the Swedish master. Tony takes a “Bergman Safari” (they have T-shirts and everything), an exaggerated moniker for a bus ride through the austere Swedish island. “This tree was in the movie…it was much smaller then!” the guide enthuses. Tony and the other film dudes try to one-up each other in esoteric knowledge while, contributing in her own way, Chris buys Bibi Andersson’s sunglasses at a gift shop.

Krieps cuts a figure not unlike Isabelle Huppert in writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve’s previous film, “Things to Come.” The filmmaker calls her work “personal” rather than autobiographical, and “Bergman Island” fits neatly into Hansen-Løve’s catalogue of heroines adjacent to herself. When Chris worries that her latest script is re-covering the same ground as earlier work, we smile in recognition. “We spend our whole lives saying the same thing,” she moans—but it all depends how good that one thing is.

The narrative gets even more amusing about an hour into the film when, on a long walk with Tony, Chris recounts the screenplay she is laboring over, which naturally involves a wedding on Fårö Island. We see the project unfold through her eyes: first she picks out two marvelous actors, Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen, as Amy and Joseph, a pair of on-again off-again lovers reunited at their friend’s nuptials. Like Krieps, Wasikowska resists patriarchal lectures about Bergman and wearing brassieres. She is, it goes without saying, a filmmaker, and Joseph calls her out for his depiction in her last film. “The guy who plays me? I’m much better.”

For the duration of “Bergman Island,” the stories of the two couples are skillfully shot in parallel, pairing idyllic scenery with fractured relationships. The paths of the “real” and “fictional” characters begin to converge, as when Hampus (Hampus Nordenson), a semi-permanent resident and big time Bergman-head, appears in both Chris and Amy’s strolls around the island. There is, of course, eventually an ABBA singalong, so the two most critical Swedish contributions to global culture are covered.

The film’s heady games are carried along by ambiguity and a sense of play, a too-rare quality in contemporary movies. Chris struggles to find a conclusion to her story, so she invites all the players (and all of us) to sort out an ending together, diving into excellent questions about art making along the way.

Now showing

“Bergman Island” is streaming on Hulu. Rated R. Running time 1:52. Visit hulu.com.

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