"You know writing is hard for me. It's torture. It's self-inflicted agony. It's blood from a stone."
Mia Hansen-Løve's Bergman Island is one of the best films I've ever seen about the struggles of being an artist and the pain that comes from creating- or maybe from a lack of creating. To be a contemporary artist is to feel the pressure of hundreds of years of great art weighing down on you. Whenever I begin a screenplay, I sit staring at a blank page on my computer screen, stressing over whether I can make truly great art, terrified of never measuring up to the filmmakers I admire the most. I feel the presence of those filmmakers looming over me- their ghosts haunting every word I type. Insecurity festers within me as I pour my heart out onto the page, still worrying that maybe it is not truly my own heart that my words are coming from. I long for the guidance of another person- someone to tell me that what I'm writing is any good. I think to myself, can art be great if it is not seen by someone other than its creator? This validation from another person gives my work meaning, yet the presence of a spectator is also what crushes me. I long to be seen, but being seen is the most terrifying aspect of making art. Bergman Island expresses this in a way that I've never experienced in a film. These feelings have always been inside me, but Mia Hansen-Løve gave me the means to put them into words.
Chris (Vicky Krieps) comes to the island of Fårö with her husband, Tony (Tim Roth), for them to both write their own screenplays. Fårö was the home and place of work of legendary Swedish filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman for over 40 years. Since he died in 2007, his estate has been opened up for people like Chris and Tony to write at. Tony is quite a successful writer and director who, like Bergman, makes a lot of films about the suffering of women. He screens one of his films on fårö which appears to be a horror film that ends with a woman running from a killer, and then stabbing him. At the Q&A after his screening, Tony mentions that all of his films have female protagonists because he is naturally drawn to them. This is a common sentiment among male directors. One who immediately comes to mind is David Lynch, who once said that he "relates" more to women, which is why most of his films are centered around them. Like many of these directors, Tony isn't just interested in telling stories about women though; he's interested in telling stories about their pain. This is made more evident at one point when Chris goes through his journal and discovers drawings of women in situations of sexual violence, which disturbs her. Tony's art seems to alienate Chris, who perhaps also feels intimidated by his status as a successful, respected filmmaker. It's not just Bergman's presence on the island that makes writing difficult, but also Tony's- whose approval she longs for in everything she does. She wants to be seen by him because it validates her status as an artist, but it's also being seen by him that makes it so much harder to get anything done.
When Chris begins to write an outline for a feature titled The White Dress, she immediately wants to tell Tony about it, whereas he is reluctant to tell her anything about the entire screenplay that he has just finished writing. Chris is not shy about expressing the intense emotion from which her art originates. She tells Tony, "You know writing is hard for me. It's torture. It's self-inflicted agony. It's blood from a stone." His response is not as empathetic or expressive; he casually says, "Well then, do something else... You know there's no reason writing has to be so difficult for you. You're not fifteen, you've outgrown that." Everything appears so easy for him as if his work simply writes itself, which embarrasses Chris because she feels like the way she creates is wrong, and that the overwhelming emotion and pain that plagues her artistic process is childish. He's able to shrug off all the struggles she faces like they're nothing. All these things about Tony- how he's older than Chris, how he's more established in the film industry, how he's so calm and collected and never eager to share his work with her, and how he seems to have a weird thing about women- all manifest themselves as anxieties riddled throughout Chris's film.
In The White Dress, a 28-year-old filmmaker named Amy (Mia Wasikowska) goes to a wedding on fårö, where she spends time with Joseph (Anders Danielsen Lie)- a man whom she has had two failed relationships with since she was 15. Joseph is a little older than her, more emotionally reserved and cold, and he leads her on constantly. After 13 years of an off-and-on romance between the two of them, Amy is still desperate for his attention. She brings a white dress with her to the island, and she asks multiple people if it's okay to wear at the wedding ceremony, claiming that it's "off-white" or "beige" each time, when she knows it's just white. She seeks validation from all these people she asks, and this is only so that she can wear it at the wedding with the intent of also seeking validation from Joseph. She just wants him to see her in that beautiful white dress, hoping it'll cause him to think about marrying her. Amy's aching desire to be seen by Joseph mirrors Chris's desire to be seen by Tony. These two things- the white dress in her story, and her screenplay in real life- are both vessels for these women to seek approval from men.
Early on in the film, Chris and Tony have dinner with the head of the Bergman Foundation, and they learn that Bergman had nine children with six different women throughout his life. He had very little contact with most of them- some of whom didn't even know he was their father. Chris remarks, "I would like to have nine kids from five different men... [but] I like a certain coherence. I don't like it when artists I love don't behave well in real life." This is called back to later in a scene from The White Dress, in which Amy has just had sex with Joseph, who is married. She expresses how hurt she is that he chose another woman over her, and he interjects that she also moved on when she gave birth to a child. She tells him that she wants a child with him, to which he replies, "You wanted two children with two men at the same time. It was absurd." This reflection of Chris's desires within the character of Amy brings up an interesting point that male artists are allowed to cheat on their partners and abandon their children, and there is no objection from anyone because their art is so great while female artists must remain faithful and stay in their lanes or they will be condemned by the public.
And as a female artist, Chris has to wonder if Bergman- a man so well-respected yet so cruel- experienced the same creative struggles as her. Did Bergman find writing agonizing like her? And if he did, would that agony be considered a sign of his genius, or just childish, like it is for her? For male artists, every flaw of theirs is just another quality that people will attribute to their brilliance, but for women, these flaws are always a sign of immaturity and weakness. Chris feels silly for writing an overly emotional, romantic film, but this emotion is actually her strength as an artist. To create something that blooms from the depths of your heart- that is so achingly romantic- that is marked by an intense yearning to be seen- is powerful.
In fact, one of the most powerful scenes in the film is of Amy dancing to "The Winner Takes It All" by ABBA with other women. Amy embraces her femininity and it sets her free in this moment, and this is also the peak of Chris's screenplay. Chris's unapologetic expression of her emotions is what makes her special as a woman filmmaker. Even when Amy notices Joseph has left the room and is no longer there to watch her dance and she can't help but go look for him, this is not a failure. Although not as triumphant as Amy singing and dancing, this moment is important for Chris because in her writing she welcomes her vulnerability and acknowledges that feeling pain and longing is just as powerful as expressing joy. Her lack of shame around her emotions is a celebration of her womanhood. Later in the scene, Joseph texts Amy that he'll meet her at her cabin later, which gives her hope. Suddenly, the ABBA song shifts from diegetic to non-diegetic in a moment of pure euphoria as Amy races home on her bike, and then it is promptly interrupted by a hard cut to a shot of her sitting alone in her room, wearing the white dress and checking her phone as she waits for Joseph in silence. Amy can't shake her longing to be seen by the man she loves. Once again, being seen is what gives her strength, but also what holds her back- as is the case for Chris- but if they both embrace this desire, they can conquer their stories. To write, Chris has to take the leap of faith and let this desire guide her toward greater things.
Mia Hansen-Løve's screenplay has such a distinctly female perspective that accentuates the longing and desperation that Chris and Amy both experience. These two characters are women who struggle to find their voices when they are alone and rely on men to give their voices meaning. Chris's journey throughout the film is about learning to take agency over her identity as an artist as she writes this screenplay that defines her feelings in permanent ink. The ideas that exist in her mind are plagued by anxiety, forever connected to the legacy of both her husband, and Bergman, but her words on the page exist independent of any man, untethered to the growing pressure she experiences on Fårö. At the beginning of the film, we watch these ideas begin as anxieties in Chris's mind, then later they transform into words on a page, and then finally they take on lives of their own as vivid, rich, cinematic experiences. The metanarrative serves as a cathartic reclamation of her art from the insecurities instilled in her by the patriarchal roots of the film industry.
Bergman Island is a story of learning to stand on your own as an artist and coping with the anxiety of creating work within a world of millions of people who can do it better than you. It's about learning to fall in love again with the thing that causes you the most pain. Art, like a romantic relationship, is both beautiful and comforting, as well as messy and terrifying. It's the joy of giving everything you have to offer and the fear of not getting anything back. It's the desire to be seen, and the horror of being seen. It's heartwarming and it's heartbreaking. It's self-inflicted agony, blood from a stone.
Written By Owen Felton
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