Fanny and Alexander (1982)

November 12, 2022 9:59 AM

Two young Swedish children in the 1900s experience the many comedies and tragedies of their lively and affectionate theatrical family, the Ekdahls.

This is for the three-hour-long movie version which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, not the the five-hour-long version (which is less available through streaming services, though it is one of the versions included in the Criterion release on DVD and Blu-Ray).

Justwatch listing

posted by johnofjack (1 comment total)

This is an absolute favourite of mine! For some reason it aired in full on tv when I was a kid and I remember watching it entranced. Years later I could only remember certain scenes but luckily the lighting a fart to amuse children search brought me to the film again. I watched it on the big screen a couple of years ago and it was such a delight - full of sadness and joy and so many moments - like being inside a whirl of a family. Rewatching it one thing that struck me was how many audibly and visually quiet moments there are too - they work with the big expansive and dramatic moments to make this - not a balance but a conversational sense of air between the speech, space for you to absorb what has just happened and look at the world on screen for a moment.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:45 PM on November 12, 2022 [1 favorite]