Bergman: A Year in a Life

Jane Magnusson's 2018 Swedish documentary puts Ingmar Bergman's year of 1957 under the lens: he shot two films, saw two released, staged four plays and made a television film. The documentary tries to read a whole life through that single year. Its most contested passage shows that some of the childhood stories Bergman told about himself cannot be verified; the director had also constructed his own myth. His relations with his family, his children and the actors he worked with are related without softening. His brother's testimony is the harshest section. The archive access is very wide. The structure does not stay tied to the one year and at times spreads out. Who it's for: viewers interested in Bergman and in film history. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a celebratory portrait, or uncomfortable with harsh passages about the director's private life.