Breathing Space

We completed our viewing of Fanny and Alexander yesterday afternoon. Noi wants us to be on the look-out for more foreign movies when we go to England, having enjoyed this one so much. At the point when Uncle Isak was stealing the children from the bishop - a control man, she astutely pointed out - she was jumping up and down on the sofa shouting Quick, quick. I would have been doing the same had I not watched the film before.

Afterwards I mentioned the slow pace of the film to her (by the way, the version we watched is the full five hour version shown originally on Swedish television, not the three hour version released in cinemas) intending this as praise, but Noi didn't think it slow at all. And I realised how right she was. The story moves along at a considerable pace over the full arc of the movie. But Bergman allows time for the wonderful monologues and set pieces, like Carl's scenes with his poor wife - so painfully, hurtfully, funny. This is a movie that allows itself, and the viewer, to breathe.

I'm wondering if the reason I find most films today difficult to watch with sustained attention lies in the lack of such space. And I'm furthering wondering why so many features of our lives today seem to seek to deny us such space.