After Watching "Fanny and Alexander"

Greatest movies are about humanity. While watching them, you feel anxiety, anger, fear, relief, exuberance, satisfaction, and all the emotional experiences the characters in the movie are going through. They are not about "right or wrong". They just show you the reality, point out and hightlight the problems, and perhaps give no answers, clues, or even hopes. After invoking your empathies, you are left with a long time digesting, identifying, and contemplating every little detail that has impressed you. The movie doesn't end, and it never will.




"Fanny and Alexander" is a simple story. A classical story about children and their merciless step-father. Fanny and Alexander are siblings. They should've lived a happy childhood in a wealthy family, had their father not died of heart attack. Their mom found a new husband, and moved, together with the two poor children, into a dull and disciplinary family. Ever since, Alexander stepped into constant conflicts with his new father who tried hard to conquer the young boy's mind and will. The disturbing stress escalated to a rude punishment of Alexander, after the step-father found out Alexander's fantasy about the tragedy of the step-father's ex-wife and their daughters. The rest of the movie is about how Alexander escapes this miserable life with the help of the family of his dead father. Although both Fanny and Alexander appear in the title of the movie, it is mainly about Alexander, about how his mentality and religion belief evolve in the face of the series of fortunate and unfortuante incidents and radical changes to his life.

The story is no way complex. A sophisticated movie doesn't need a complicated story. Life is a string of simple events threaded by unexpected coincidents and twists. Sophistication lies in the close and acute examination of normal human behavior, and the exposure of intellectual activities behind observations. "Fanny and Alexander" is such a movie.