British actor and director Kenneth Branagh is this summer's guest at Bergman Week at Fårö, with his version of Mozart's The Magic Flute, which also Ingmar Bergman directed in 1975.
Branagh, well-known for his Shakespeare interpretations on film and stage, premiered The Magic Flute at the Venice and Toronto festivals. For the Swedish premiere of the film, he has chosen Bergman Week at Fårö (June 26 - July 1). For the fourth consecutive year, Bergman Week arranges seminars, talks and guided tours to the locales of the films Bergman shot at Fårö. Among last summer's guests were directors Ang Lee and Josef Fares and actress Harriet Andersson.
"Of course, in the seventies I enjoyed a lot the last version of 'The Magic Flute' – a miracle in nature which definitely glued me to the same mental age through all my life. In Bergman's 'Flute' I saw an itnimate chamber play. I wanted to do something more passionate and piqué", Branagh comments his own version of The Magic Flute.
In Branagh's film, the story has been transferred to the trenches of WW I. Mozart's drama has become a story marking the end of an era of innocence and the beginning of a new age with global conflicts.
Kenneth Branagh has also selected his favourite Bergman film for his participation in the Bergman Week this summer – Fanny and Alexander, which he will introduce at a screening.
"I saw ’Fanny and Alexander’ for the first time when I was 22. Like so many others, I was transported by the landscape, inside and out, by the colour, by the natural elements, by the music, by the characters and by Bergman's magnificent, compassionate orchestration of them all. It is a quite beautiful film. A masterwork.
"Bergman makes the seemingly rarified environment of the theatre talk eloquently, and relevantly, about the 'big world' outside. I have found that a great inspiration."