Opiniões dos críticos

Deliberately or not, Bergman assembled an inventory of the cinematic and personal attributes that had since 1946 worked so magnificently and proficiently from his reflective psyche into his astonishing filmography.

It is no surprise that Bergman should give these two women the triumphant last word in Fanny and Alexander, a multigenerational drama that leaps lightly over barriers of age, gender, and class. Throughout his career, with his characteristic spare-nothing close-ups, he has followed the emotional logic in his actresses’ faces, dug deeper into their psyches than any other director.

With his magnum opus, FANNY AND ALEXANDER, Bergman drew also on the major literature of that era; many have compared the film to the novels of Charles Dickens and Émile Zola, along with such turn-of-the-century early-modernism as Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.

It has the most lavish and enviable Christmas party in cinema, and even though the film takes a grim turn, it is not above having a Christmas miracle serve as a course correction. No film captures the holiday's glory—and the sadness of its ephemerality—or the spirit of true family so completely.

An expansive, haunting period piece-cum-fairy tale even in its shorter theatrical version. . . . To those with equally dogmatic parents: be prepared to discuss it later with your therapist.

Ingmar Bergman's formal swan song recapitulates many of his traditional themes of fear and love from childhood through old age. The period-family adventure is not dominated by the usual strong performers, but by a mellow ensemble which reflect the director's dreams and fantasies of the '80s.

The film doesn't so much surmount Bergman's usual shortcomings—the crude contrasts, heavy symbolism, and preachy philosophizing—as find an effective context for them. Tied to a child's mind, the oversimplifications become the stuff of myth and legend. As in The Night of the Hunter, a realistic psychological drama is allowed to expand into fantasy; the result is one of Bergman's most haunting and suggestive films.