I really hope to one day happen across the shorter version of this movie. The version I watched this time, my virgin viewing, was the 5 hour cut, I guess technically a mini-series. It was, nevertheless, an experience I’m glad to have sought out.

The movie details a year in the life of a particularly well-off family, all the ups and downs, some harshly true to life, some mesmerisingly surreal, mostly (if a little less than suggested by the title) seen from the perspective of two of the newest generation, Fanny and Alexander, both around 10 years old.

I was really drawn in by the first act, which covers the family’s Christmas celebrations. It totally reminded me of my own family’s Christmases when I was a kid, when my grandparents still lived in a large train station house in a small town outside York and the whole family congregated there. It’s a personal thing to put in a film review… but hey, film is a personal thing.

The movie as I saw it this time is incredibly long, but I didn’t look away for a single frame, even though I may have felt a little bored. For this reason, I’m determined to find the shorter cut of the film. The turns the movie takes once the kids are stolen away from the good life and faced with a life straight out of a Brontë novel are at once extraordinary and bizarrely truthful. I loved this movie, but the main thing I drew from this first viewing is how much was unnecessary in the longer cut.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 11th, 2004 at 12:45 am in Movie Reviews, unrated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.