Initial Thoughts: I have held off buying Bergman films for awhile because I own quite a few already and have to be in the right mood for them. Plus I had a sneaky suspicion a 100 year Birthday may have been coming since he is one of their top 3 most represented directors with releases from them and they honored another director with a massive boxset.
Off the so called 39 films on this set I have only seen maybe ten of them with Fanny and Alexander and Seventh Seal being the two I have seen the most. My love of Bergman films is simply Ingmar was the best of having people show their emotions and what is going on in those people's heads.
Honestly if I could take Bergman's DNA, combine it with Kurosawa's for storytelling, and Nicolas Roeg's for cinematography I would be in heaven. So you can tell I am excited for what is inside this set. So much stuff that I was unsure what the extras and transfers were until I opened the set.
The opening of the set: Let's just say my jaw dropped a few times for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yes there is at least one thing about this set that is inexcusable.
The Good: This set is loaded and when I mean loaded it is loaded. I could make Bergman 101 from this set into a real college course. 39 films with 2 alternate versions as well to watch makes each movie come to 7.31 far better than the 40 retail price tags of most Criterion releases.
Mix in all films except, Seventh Seal (4K) in this set included a 2K restoration. Quite a few of these films were making their US Debut on BluRay like Hour of the Wolf.
Then there is this book at nearly 2" thick of interviews, retospectives, and gorgeous behind the scenes photographs of people like Max Van Sydow and Liv Ullman. It's breathtaking and I could spend hours reading the book at home or work.
That does not include the supplemental material which is contained on their own disc unless it was a commentary for a film.
The bad: Well because of liscensing rights not every Bergman film is included, so I bummed Face to Face is not in this set in which Bergman won a Golden Globe for and Liv Ullman was nominated for best actress at the Oscars.
The box set is also massive in size so you might have a difficult time trying to find the right home for it in your house.
Then there is no rhyme and reason to how they ordered the films in the set. It's like Criterion in many ways wants to control what order you watch the films in. I would have preferred if they were placed in year of release or alphabetically. These are really just minor complaints.
The Ugly: I can never forgive Criterion or in that matter any company who puts their discs in a holder that may scratch the discs. So yes all my discs have been removed and put in a wallet holder for the time being. I am just not going to chance damaging the discs.
Ending Thoughts: This is a set that should easily be getting a 9.5/10 from me because of the lack of Face to Face. Yet that case holder is unforgivable causing me to take another point away.
8.5 out of 10.
In the coming weeks I'll be doing individual reviews of films in this set starting with Hour of the Wolf.
For those who can't wait check out BS Movies Podcast for their Bergman Centennial picks.
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