THE BEST INTENTIONS Movie Review

In 1991, Ingmar Bergman completed a screenplay based on the courtship and marriage of his parents, but rather than direct this extremely personal material himself, he entrusted it to friend and colleague Bille August. August's Pelle the Conqueror had just found worldwide success, and Bergman's intimate drama of marital tension and class/culture-clash appealed enormously to August, as did the fact that Bergman would entrust such a responsibility to him. August had a full, six-hour canvas on which to tell the story, thanks to Swedish television's interest, but the theatrical version that played around the world ended up as a condensed, three-hour film—hardly rushed, but severely abridged nevertheless. This does seem to create gaps in the tale of Anna Akerblom (played superbly by the director's wife, Pernilla August), the strong-willed daughter of a proudly bourgeois family, and her involvement and ultimate marriage to the poor, working-class theology student named Henrik Bergman (Samuel Froler). The Best Intentions is a physically splendid epic about the small tensions and incidental moments in a relationship that evolve into the big issues that, ultimately, will affect the lives of everyone in the family, including those yet unborn. Set between 1909and 1918, the film can be seen as a kind of “prequel” to Bergman's own 1973 Scenes from a Marriage (itself originally a serial for Swedish TV, and also edited down to three hours for theatrical release). While the movie is filled with insights into the issue of class difference—perhaps the most skimmed over but explosive of all marital differences—we keep unconsciously looking for clues about the background of the child we know is coming: little Ingmar. He's on the screen only in utero but his presence is felt throughout; toward the end, the suspense of his impending birth tends to feel a bit too much like an expected holy event that would be unseemly to actually depict on screen. (What infant actor could carry the weight of portraying Ingmar Bergman, and how could even Bille August deal with the implications of showing Ingmar Bergman's umbilical cord being cut?) The Best Intentions, as fine as it is, cries out to be seen in its full version, simply to see the full shape of Bergman's conception, as well as to discover what he and August found acceptable to leave out.

NEXT STOP … Sunday's Children, Jerusalem, Pelle the Conqueror

1992 182m/C SW Samuel Froler, Pernilla August, Max von Sydow, Ghita Norby, Mona Malm, Lena Endre, Bjorn Kjellman; D: Bille August; W: Ingmar Bergman; C: Jorgen Persson; M: Stefan Nilsson. Cannes Film Festival ‘92: Best Actress (August), Best Film. VHS FCT