Fanny and Alexander

Fanny and Alexander is a 1982 Ingmar Bergman film. It begins at Christmas. Not a typical holiday movie, but -honestly- isn't that a good thing? I am impressed by it.

I have the Criterion edition of the theatrical version. DailyMotion has it in parts, with the first part here. If you watch it there, the other parts are linked at the top of that page.

trailer:

The New York Times has a glowing review. The Guardian says this is where to start with Bergman.

Slant Magazine says, "How the imagination at once mirrors, deflects, and rearranges reality, especially in childhood, constitutes one of the myriad strands that make up the core of Ingmar Bergman's monumental Fanny and Alexander." Senses of Cinema says, "As an elaborately constructed, compulsively watchable piece of large-scale fiction made for the screen, Fanny och Alexander (Fanny and Alexander) is an achievement with few equals".

Roger Ebert has it on his list of Great Movies and concludes,

At the end, I was subdued and yet exhilarated; something had happened to me that was outside language, that was spiritual, that incorporated Bergman's mysticism; one of his characters suggests that our lives flow into each other's, that even a pebble is an idea of God, that there is a level just out of view where everything really happens.

Empire Online gives it 5 out of 5 stars and concludes, "An accomplished masterpiece, with excellent performances and rarely bettered direction." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 100%.