SUNDAY’S CHILDREN (SONDAGSBARN) Tribute to Ingmar Bergman on his 75th Birthday

Sunday’s Children is another gorgeous, richly poignant memoir written by Ingmar Bergman ( Wild Strawberries, Fanny and Alexander), but directed by his son Daniel as his first feature. Though the master keeps saying he has retired from film-making, you would hardly know it from the extraordinary films that continue to appear. Sunday’s Children is set in the late 1920’s in a serene Swedish countryside, where the 10 year old Bergman surrogate figure Pu (Hendrik Linnros) spends the summer with his seemingly gregarious family. Pu idolizes his father, who loves him in return, yet as the summer progresses there is increasing tension between them. Pu’s accompaniment of his father on an emotional day-long outing, where the future is seen in brief, bold flashes, becomes the substance of the film. Not since Wild Strawberries has Ingmar Bergman dealt with time in a way that is simultaneously quite so limpid and so mysterious. Luminously shot by cinematographer Tony Forsberg, Sunday’s Children is an anecdote so full of mirrors, so magically placed, that the film manages to reflect the future while also revealing new interpretations of the past- Vincent Canby, New York Times