Bergman Island
Les Films du Losange | Release Date: October 15, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Little White LiesLillian CrawfordJun 10, 2022
Rather than an attempt at directorial mimicry, Bergman Island is a unique vision from one of the greatest directors working today. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonOct 19, 2021
One of the most playful films about cinema in recent memory, and even with its angst, is more joyful than any film Bergman made on the island. Read full review
100
Vanity FairRichard LawsonOct 14, 2021
The gap between fact and fiction is where Bergman Island finds its murmuring potency. Its maybe unanswerable questions of self and creation give Hansen-Løve’s finespun film a sneaking weight. Perhaps one point of art is the guessing. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Chandler LevackSep 15, 2021
While the film first regales us in sightseeing tours of the scenic Faro Island, the film ends in an unexpected wallop of heartbreak as Chris begins to describe the film-within-a-film she’s writing in her notebook to her unattentive partner. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJul 11, 2021
A late narrative gambit made me worry that Hansen-Løve was pushing her conceit a little too far into the realm of the meta, but it pays off with thrilling clarity and elegance. Read full review
92
Paste MagazineAurora AmidonOct 14, 2021
What begins as a straightforward story of two artists creating different projects ultimately turns into Hansen-Løve’s strongest argument for the inextricable nature of life and art yet. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 11, 2021
Bergman Island is a heart-stoppingly poignant stunner all the same — one beating inside a body of work that has always been seasick with the bittersweet vertigo that comes from looking at the past through the smudged lens of memory and imagination. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreOct 15, 2021
In its glimpse into the lives of partnered-up fictional directors, Bergman Island invites its viewer to guess how much it’s a reflection of Hansen-Løve’s actual relationship, while also acknowledging the gap between the art someone makes and the person they are. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 14, 2021
This ingenious and beautiful film by Mia Hansen-Løve isn’t for chewing so much as savoring. The more you think back on its mysteries, the more pleasure it bestows. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 14, 2021
It’s a movie that isn’t quite sure whether it wants to be one, or which one it wants to be. Which makes it feel like more than just a movie. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 19, 2021
Even Hansen-Løve’s characteristically light, unassuming touch feels like a playful rejoinder to the weight of the Bergman mystique, a refusal to let him dictate the terms of the argument. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterJon FroschJul 11, 2021
Delicate, droll and imbued with a haunting, understated wistfulness, Bergman Island wears its layers so lightly it may take you a while to notice just how much it’s got going on. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflySep 16, 2021
The finish line in Bergman Island is of the opaque kind. But anything else would have done Hansen-Løve’s wistful sleepwalk through memory, time and cinema injustice. Her film is less a direct, clear-cut homage to Bergman, and more a searching exploration of reality and art in the way they mirror, propel and feed on one another, washing ashore remembrances both dreamy and lifelike. Read full review
83
Original-CinKaren GordonOct 14, 2021
It’s a lovely, intelligent movie that explores relationships, creativity, inspiration and the benefits of wrestling with the blank page. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubRoxana HadadiOct 13, 2021
In its strongest, most evocative scenes, Bergman Island feels like peering in someone else’s window, sensing an echo of your own experiences, and marveling at all the ways a stranger could remind you of yourself. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJun 7, 2022
Bergman Island has a languid, meandering pace and a plot that is governed by chance encounters and discoveries. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellJun 7, 2022
Bergman Island is at once an ambivalent love-letter to the Swedish master director Ingmar Bergman and a charming study of the complexities of relationships, the creative process, and the ways that one invariably influences the other. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJun 6, 2022
Just missing out on top-tier Hansen-Løve, Bergman Island is beautifully played — especially by Krieps and Wasikowska — and retains all the hallmarks of her best work; an intelligent, personal, heartfelt treat. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekOct 15, 2021
Movies about artists trying to make art might be deadly, but movies about people living are where it’s at. And in the end, there’s more living than writing going on in Bergman Island. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJul 13, 2021
Although the story isn’t autobiographical, there’s a tang of lived experience here – of very personal feelings and important questions being channelled through these characters – that keeps its sunlit landscapes and island interactions ground with relatability. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanJul 11, 2021
If Bergman Island is a roman à clef about Mia Hansen-Løve and Olivier Assayas, it’s an oblique one. If it’s a “Before” film, it’s one that embeds a crucial element of emotional exploration in the educated guesswork of the audience. If it’s a cinephile shell game made with disarmingly clever sincerity — and I would say that’s just what it is — it’s one that leaves you grateful to have paid a visit to this island. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 21, 2021
Bergman Island deftly interrogates the idolization of art and the lionization of artists, while also distinguishing between experiencing a place and sucking it for “inspiration.” Read full review
75
Washington PostPat PaduaOct 12, 2021
Bergman Island is a compelling, enchanting film that works both as a relationship drama and as a conversation between one generation of directors and another. It’s almost as though Mia Hansen-Love were teaching Ingmar Bergman how to get down. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorJul 15, 2021
Hansen-Løve’s cinema has reached higher ceilings than this, but it is a restorative sojourn just the same. Read full review
75
Slant MagazinePat BrownJul 11, 2021
The film never sacrifices its ambiguity as it brings various threads about ghosts, relationships, art, and gender to a head. Read full review
73
TheWrapBen CrollJul 11, 2021
Perhaps it’s a way for Hansen-Løve to show the way artists pick from their own lives, or maybe it’s a way to muddy the meta waters even more. That ambiguity does not always work to the benefit of a film that always teeters on the brink of self-indulgence, mind you. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyOct 14, 2021
Among the virtues of Bergman Island is how uncluttered it is generally, as well as its consistent quietude and Hansen-Løve’s keenness of observation. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 7, 2022
A valuable if slightly passionless and reticent movie. Read full review
60
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyJul 13, 2021
It’s a film made with honesty, integrity and a certain grace, but it can’t quite overcome an earnestness that was never a problem in Hansen-Love’s best films, which carried their literary and cinematic inspirations lightly. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerOct 14, 2021
It’s not frustrating, but then, it’s not quite that engaging. It may spark a little light self-recognition among filmmakers, and that’s all Hansen-Løve seems to aim for. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 12, 2021
This is an auto-auto-auto-fiction that throws out the occasional fun, cinephiliac in-joke, and teases the odd insight into creative blockage and romantic unfulfillment. But mostly, it serves to prove the old adage that a self-deprecating awareness that your movie has nothing going on in it is no substitute for having something going on in your movie. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesTara BradyJun 3, 2022
A quiet character study pivoting around mum sex and elder care, it’s not the director’s best work but it’s streets ahead of this recent misfire. Read full review
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