The lines between reality and fiction start to blur for a couple of filmmakers when they retreat to the island that inspired Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s work in Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island. The film had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year where it was selected to be part of the official programme. It stars Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Planet of the Apes), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread, Old) and Aussie actor Mia Wasikowska (Stocker, Crimson Peak).

Arriving on the Faro island where Ingmar Bergman made some of his most critically acclaimed films, Tony (Roth) and Chris (Krieps) hope to soak up the atmosphere and be inspired to write their own masterpieces. While Chris struggles with a deep dislike for the acclaimed filmmaker, resenting him for his treatment of women, Tony finds himself completely absorbed by the experience.

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Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth

As the days go by, Chris finds solace in cycling around the Island and finding her own inspiration away from Tony. She later outlines a story she’s been roughly working on to a seemingly unimpressed Tony.

Hansen-Løve delivers a handsomely written, absorbing and gorgeously atmospheric story which is deeply inspired by Bergman’s own works. As Tony and Chris arrive on the island, they are swiftly informed that the house where they’d be staying is the very house where Bergman’s Scenes From A Marriage (1974) was shot (“the film that made millions of people divorce”, they are nonchalantly and repeatedly told by their host). It is this idea of a failing relationship that is at the heart of Hansen-Løve’s film.

Krieps and Roth deliver two phenomenal performances as a couple who are slowly haunted by Bergman’s many failed relationships. Mia Wasikowska puts in an understated, yet deeply effective turn as a young woman attempting to rekindle an old relationship in the-film-within-the-film narrative which makes up Chris’s new idea.

Overall, this is a deeply grown up, inspiring and genuinely thought-provoking piece of filmmaking from one of the most innovative European filmmakers around. There is a lot here to unpack and a real treasure trove for Bergman and Hansen-Løve fans alike.