SUNDAY'S CHILDREN Movie Review

This lyrical and lovely exploration of childhood continues the complex Bergman family saga that began with the autobiographical Fanny and Alexander and left off just prior to the birth of little Ingmar in The Best Intentions. Sunday's Children takes up the story eight years after the director's birth (though it never turns into the story of little Ingmar's fascination with the movies). Many of the same issues and family conflicts carry over from the previous film (both were scripted by Bergman, though The Best Intentions was directed by Bille August), but the story soon narrows to the relationship between young Ingmar (Henrik Linnros) and his stern, minister father, Henrik (Thommy Berggren of Elvira Madigan). This collection of memories generates a strong emotional pull; being familiar with the extraordinarily expressive art that this little boy up on the screen would someday produce, we stretch and crane our necks in hopes of catching a glance of that spark of genius being born. That's impossible, of course, just as it's impossible for the adult Ingmar Bergman to understand the coldness and apparent unhappiness of his father, whom he shows in this film as being a mystery to him still. But in reaching out to him, as his script does here—a script which has been directed with sweetness and sensitivity by Bergman's own son Daniel—Ingmar Bergman the father and Ingmar Bergman the son offer a welcome ray of light, closing this unique series of films on a generous note of grace.

NEXT STOP … Fanny and Alexander, The Best Intentions, Pelle the Conqueror

1994 118m/C SW Thommy Berggren, Lena Endre, Henrik Linnros, Jacob Leygraf, Maria Bolme, Bjorje Ahistedt, Per Myrberg; D: Daniel Bergman; W: Ingmar Bergman. VHS FRF