For a long time I’ve been meaning to write something about Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, but I never did. Perhaps people remember F&A best for its scenes of turn of the century family life. My memories are a bit different, I’m interested most in the storyline towards the end, concerning Isak Jacobi and Ismail Redzinsky. When you concentrate on the film’s structure more than on the narrative elements (a difficult task, because the narrative is so seductive), it becomes clear that Isak (an “avatar” of Bergman himself) drives much of that structure. The entire film travels the pathways of the tree of life. In opposition to the demonic father figure that is Vergerus, stands Isak Jacobi, the Abraham of F&A’s “hebraic lore”. His house is a Borgean library, a labyrinth, in which the Power to harm or to heal is locked up in a room and is brought breakfast everyday.
When I first saw F&A I was amazed by the scenes containing Ismael. It is perhaps the most debated part of the film, because, what is going on here? It is obvious that there is sorcery at work with Isak and also with Ismael, who is locked up “because of madness”. It is Ismael who unlocks the sorcery in Alexander’s mind and it is never clear whether the events that happen in the culminating scene of the film happen in sequence or in parallel. I have my own theory about Ismael: he is the Source. In the film, Ismael is clearly an androgyne, and he is played by Stina Ekblad. For me, this choice has a very deep meaning. The reason that Ismael is hidden (mirroring Alexander’s incarceration by the Bishop) is that s/he is the source, the Adam Kadmon of the story. Past and present, good and evil flow as one stream from him. Ismael is entirely beyond any moral category: he is the hidden life force in each of us, as Alexander finds out.