1983 Winner, Fanny and Alexander

Fanny and Alexander

Directed by:  Ingmar Bergman

Distributor:  Sandrew Film & Teater

Released:  December 1982

Country:  Sweden

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Fanny and Alexander is a family movie.  And by that, I don’t mean Fanny and Alexander are dogs that talk or anything like that.  No, this is a movie about families, or rather, one big multi-part Swedish family.  Fanny and Alexander are the young kids, and really the movie is told from Alexander’s point of view—Fanny is just there for show.  By the way, this really isn’t a Rated-G family movie, as there is serious sexual shenanigans afoot; in fact, some bare breasts and a fanny or two are prominently displayed.  But not Fanny’s fanny—she’s just a kid!

The family at Christmas; Fanny & Alexander, first row right

This extended family, whom we find in early twentieth century Sweden, is full of character and characters.  There’s lecherous but jovial Uncle Gustav, whose wife Alma knows about his appetites, but she turns a blind eye because she is one of them.  There’s intelligent Uncle Carl, who doesn’t seem to know how to manage his money.  Helena is the kids' grandmother, fun-loving and wise, the glue that holds the family together.  And then there is Fanny and Alexander’s father Oscar, who runs a theater that really doesn’t make much money but whose players and crew are like a family unto themselves.  The story begins pleasantly on Christmas Eve, a time when they will all get together, sing and dance, drink like crazy, and possibly hook up with a maid (that’s mostly just Gustav).

 

The fun ends early on, though, when Emilie, Oscar’s pretty wife with blonde hair and impossibly dark eyebrows, loses her husband to a stroke.  Big changes are in store for the kids, whether they like it or not.  Helene wants to take care of them, and so she takes up with the seemingly caring Lutheran bishop who counsels her through this tough time.  Once they are married, the bishop wants only what's best for the kids, and so naturally he thinks things like chores and gruel and no wire hangers are exactly what they’ll need to grow up to be good God-fearing Christians.

Emilie

Ingmar Bergman knew his way around the back of a camera and it shows it this expansive and engaging film.  This was the last major work of this giant of not only Swedish, but all, cinema.  It is said this is his most autobiographical film, and many details of his early life find their way into this story.  Most particularly, Bergman is represented by Alexander, a bright and headstrong boy raised by this strict Lutheran minister.  Bergman must have really hated his old man, because there little sympathy in the portrayal of Alexander’s step-father in Fanny and Alexander.

This is a marathon of a movie, but the version I watched was shortened from the original, over five hours long, made for Swedish television.  The DVD set I loaned from the library had both versions, but I, wisely I think, stuck to the three hours rendering.  Maybe someday when I have time to burn I will go back and check out the longer film, because for the entire three hours I found myself plenty entertained.

Step-father and son bonding

The Title:  Fanny och Alexander.  Honestly, Fanny doesn’t do much in this film; perhaps Bergman felt the title ”Alexander” would have been a bit dull, and would have been too great a tip off that the movie’s title character was so closely related to the director.

The Culture:  Swedish families in the 1900’s, at least this family, seem like a blast.  The early scene of Christmas Eve is especially fun and instructive—the family dances to the tune of "Nu är det jul igen" ("Now It is Christmas Again"), also portrayed, of all places, in the children’s Christmas special, Arthur’s Perfect Christmas.  These kinds of details are great in adding to the flavor of a film, and in giving you a taste of the culture it portrays.

Agenda danger:  No politics in this one—this is all about family.

Best Picture that year:  Terms of Endearment.  A very different film about family.  Interestingly, Fanny and Alexander won four Oscars that year, for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and for Costume Design.  This is a very well-made film.

Rating:  This film has all the things a regular family has:  fun, laughter, sorrow, anger, sexual encounters with maids, and maybe most subtly, spirituality.  Film enthusiasts will appreciate the skill and visceral emotion Ingmar Bergman brings to the screen; regular folks who like to watch a movie every once in a while will find themselves connecting with this unusual and vibrant family.

1984 Winner, Dangerous Moves

Dangerous Moves

Director:  Richard Dembo

Distributed by:  Gaumont

Released:  April 1984

Country:  Switzerland

I’ve never had the patience to be a really good, or even halfway decent, chess player.  Now I come to find out I really don’t have the patience to watch a movie about chess players.  But I’ve committed to doing my best to watch every Best Foreign Film ever awarded by the Academy, and Dangerous Moves, Switzerland’s 1984 BFF film, wasn’t going to watch itself.  So I sucked down a pot of coffee and popped the DVD in and . . . watched at least a quarter of the film before committing to doing the same the next day.  Turns out, this is the most appropriate way to watch this film, and the most pragmatic.  More on that later.

Jan-Michael Vincent wanna be Pavius

Jan-Michael Vincent

The basic plot line is that a sage old chess champion from the Soviet Union, Akiva Liebskind, is taking on his former protégé, the Soviet defector Pavius Fromm, at the final pairing of the World Chess Championship in Geneva.  Avika is past his prime and has a serious heart condition.  The doctors warn him he should not be playing chess with such a condition.  Usually when you have a heart condition, the doctors tell you to stick to doing things like playing chess, so you know this guy’s ticker must be in pretty bad shape.  Meanwhile, Pavius is sort of a Jan-Michael Vincent wannabe, the young upstart who doesn’t respect the game or his elders.  Or the Communists, obviously.  The Soviet government finds it of utmost importance that this punk ex-Russian get beat by the old man.  Pavius in turn wants to stick it to his mentor, but his head isn’t in the game.  For those of you who may not know him, Jan-Michael Vincent was a heartthrob actor from the 1970's and '80's, who may be best known from the 1972 thriller The Mechanic, in which Charles Bronson is a hitman training his young protege, Vincent, to be the same.  Dangerous Moves has sort of the same premise . . . but with chess instead of anything interesting.

The chess championship is a best of seven, like the NBA finals or the World Series, right?  You would think that going into Match 1, these guys would come out concentrating on the fundamentals, like don’t get your king taken, or try not to lose too many guys, that sort of thing.  But these rough-and-tumble competitors are above all that, especially Pavius.  His ploy is to show up late to rattle his opponent, which it most certainly does.  And why wouldn’t it?  The first rule of chess is to show up on time, or your opponent might get mad.  Classic sports one-upsmanship.

 

Avika, The old Russian Master

Since chess matches are so demanding physically and mentally, the players take time off in between games, even if the game lasts only a few minutes.  This is where watching this film in installments pays off.  You can only take so many dangerous moves in one sitting, so it’s best to break it up a little.  In between games, we see our opponents’ relationships with their ladies, played by noted actresses Leslie Caron and Liv Ulmann, but they add little to the story.

They paid top dollar to watch this

I am careful to not give away any plot points, like who wins what games, or which player shockingly uses the Sicilian Defense and which one goes the more traditional King’s Gambit route.  But there’s little chance of me giving away the ending, because I very well may have been asleep for it.

 

I'm more of a checkers guy, myself

The Title:  The French title is La diagonale du fou, or "The Fool’s Diagonal."  I guess they changed it to Dangerous Moves in order to trick Americans into thinking it was an interesting movie.

The Culture:  The Cold War, which lasted from 1945 to 1990, included a number of events that had the world on the edge of their collective seat:  The Vietnam and Korean Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin airlift, all fraught with danger.  A chess match, I would say, does nothing to reflect that time.

Agenda danger:  Heck, I would have liked a little communist or capitalist propaganda to liven things up.

Best Picture that year:  Amadeus.  The story of Mozart.  Movie-goers must have been really patient that year.

Rating:  What would really interest me is a movie about a Checkers champ and his protégé.  Maybe even Parcheesi would be more exciting.  But during the Cold War, of course.