Fårö-dokument 1979

The FÅRÖ-DOKUMENT 1979 is more than a mere continuation of the document from 1969. Ingmar Bergman engaged documentary cameraman Arne Carlsson, a native of Fårö Island, to film the natural beauty of the island over a period of two years, which Bergman supplemented with numerous interviews. The general tone is now more optimistic. He returns to a woman farmer who reports that young family members have taken over the farm. He seeks out young people he had interviewed in the schoolbus ten years before and discovers that most of them are still on the island. The annual invasion of tourists in the summertime has had a positive influence on Fårö’s economy.

A constant factor in both documents is Bergman’s love of the sparse countryside of the “Island of Sheep” and his respect for its people, whom he encounters as equals. Once again we see the island’s children: at school playing basketball or at the feast of Santa Lucia when the young girls sing their songs to an old man. Death is part of the natural cycle of the island: toward the end of the film we experience the funeral of one of Bergman’s interview partners. An abiding document about Ingmar Bergman’s “place of refuge”.
by Ingmar Bergman
with mit Einwohnern der Insel Fårö
Sweden 1977-79 103’