When Ingmar Bergman’s last work Saraband was aired on Swedish public television in December 2003, almost a million Swedes are said to have watched it. Just three months prior to that an Ingmar Bergman Film Festival organised jointly by the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) and the National Film Archive of Indian (NFAI) in Pune evoked a response that it led to a massive traffic jam on roads leading to the venue, even as 500 people packed themselves into an auditorium that could take only 330. Such was the inescapable and rare magic of the master filmmaker who died in Stockholm on Monday. A magic, that transcended barriers of language, physical boundaries and cross-culture sensibilities. Bergman, widely accepted as one of the most remarkable and talented filmmakers of modern times, died at his home in Faro, Sweden on Monday at the age of 89. With a film career spanning 60 years the director whose films won three Oscars, was known for dexterous handling of complicated, dark subjects, perhaps reflecting his own rigid and austere upbringing as a priest’s son. “My most vivid recollection of the momentous event in Pune is of people sitting in the aisles and watching his films,” reminisces KS Sasidharan, director NFAI, of the Bergman festival, that was organised by the Pune-Sweden Business Sub-Committee of MCCIA from August 27 to September 2, 2003 and also had dignitaries from the Swedish Embassy in attendance.But what is probably more unforgettable for the Archives director is his privileged meeting with the man himself the same year. “It was in June 2003 and I had gone for the annual conference of International Federation of Film Archives that was being held in Helsinki and Stockholm that year. It had been decided by the federation to honour Bergman with the Film Preservation Award that year and the great filmmaker, who was 85 then, made a rare public appearance when he came to the Swedish Film Institute to accept the award,” says Sasidharan, who is probably one of the few Indians to have had the honour of interacting with Bergman, who had chosen the life of a recluse in his last few years of his life. Sasidharan recollects Bergman as looking very frail at the function. “But he was in high spirits and also made a brief speech. Later he mingled with us and I had the privilege of meeting him up close and telling him how the NFAI Pune has a large cache of his classics,” adds Sasidharan. As the news of Bergman’s death spread, the Archives in Pune has been inundated with calls from film societies across the country asking for his films. “We have 21 of his films and are ourselves going to hold a retrospective of his work in tribute to the great director this weekend,” says Sasidharan who has already chosen five of his classics—Seventh Seal, Summer Interlude, Virgin Spring, Scenes from a Marriage and Saraband—for screening at the NFAI auditorium. Across the road from NFAI, the news of Bergman’s death resulted in a somber atmosphere at the Film and Television Training Institute of India (FTII), where every film student, irrespective of the course opted for, pores over the works of the master director. “He was a powerful director whom we have looked at very carefully here. His work had a kind of seriousness and an adult approach,” commented Suresh Chabbria, professor of film appreciation at the FTII. According to Chabbria what made Bergman stand out was that unlike other great directors who tried to be universal in their approach, he narrowed his subjects for a more discerning and psychologically richer audience. “He was one of the first filmmakers of his time who openly touched ‘adult’ subjects like psychological problems and sexuality. He will be sorely missed,” adds Chabbria. Adds Virendra Chitrav, president of the Federation of Film Societies in India, Maharashtra chapter, “He was one of the few directors to establish films as an art form.”
