BERGMAN ISLAND (A-minus) - Mia Hansen-Love gets back on her A game with this low-key relationship tale of two screenwriters making a pilgrimage to Faro, the island made famous by Swedish legend Ingmar Bergman. It stars Vicky Krieps as Chris, who has a loving but somewhat arm's length rapport with her husband, Tony (Tim Roth), who is notably more successful a writer than she is, as well as a good 20 years her senior. She also misses their young daughter, who was left with a sitter.
While scouting around the island, Chris meets a film student at the church where Bergman is buried, and he gives her a private tour of the island, leaving Tony to go it alone on the official group tour, annoying him. The next day, Chris -- stuck at the outline stage of her latest project -- uses Tony as a sounding board for the story she is working on. Suddenly, that story takes over the screen, and now we follow Amy (Mia Wasikowska) and her former lover, Joseph (Anders Danielson Lie), as they reconnect on Faro while attending the wedding of mutual friends.
The rekindled romance is not fated to end well, and it takes a toll on Amy, who clearly is not over her ex. Occasionally Hansen-Love cuts back to Chris and Tony (above), with the husband often getting interrupted by a phone call or just kind of zoning out; he eventually punts when asked his opinion on how to end the story. Instead, Hansen-Love comes up with her own unique ending, offering yet a third take on the cast of characters.
At 105 minutes, this one is paced perfectly. It absolutely flunks the Bechdel Test, but Krieps and Wasikowska are so compelling in their ache for true affection and connection that the viewer can marginalize the stony men and commune with the women's yearning for something more in their lives and careers. Hansen-Love has struggled a bit since her mesmerizing breakthrough "Goodbye First Love," treading water with "Eden" and "Things to Come," but the strength of all of those movies has been the writer-director's devotion to a character and idea and her patience in exploring each character's thirst for growth and understanding. She is quite sensitive and insightful in letting her characters unfold before our eyes.
SWIMMING OUT UNTIL THE SEA TURNS BLUE (B-minus) - Interesting but non-essential, auteur Jia Zhang-ke ("The World," "24 City," "Mountains May Depart") explores the backstories of a handful of writers noted in Chinese literature. It's about as exciting as that opening sentence suggests.
The focus really is not on writing so much; rather, it is more of a rumination on the past. As Jia likes to do, he intersperses random scenes of modern life with visuals and reminiscences from the past to highlight his pet theme of the modernization of China since the 1980s.
The talking heads are mostly insightful and thoughtful, but there is a persistent sense, over nearly two hours, that this topic is inside baseball, not necessarily translatable to a broader international audience. Jia captures some stunning images, and he has a profound way of making a human connection with his subjects. But as the film progresses, especially with any substantive context for what the director is conveying, it can be a struggle to connect with the entire project, no matter how meticulously rendered.
BONUS TRACK
From "Bergman Island," the original version of "Summer Wine," a more modern version of which is featured in the film. Here is writer Lee Hazelwood with Nancy Sinatra:
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