The Director

by Alexander Ahndoril

The director is Ingmar Bergman; the time is 1961; and the setting is the shooting of Winter Light, a film about how his life would have been, had he followed his father’s wishes and become a priest. As actors and crew gather to film this alternative destiny, Bergman tries to draw his father into the process, but quickly finds himself plunged back into the emotions of his childhood—both terrorized by his brutal and dominating father, and desperately longing for his approval—and reality gradually begins to crack and crumble, tipping him into a world of false memories and dangerous fantasies. Compelling and breathtakingly original, The Director mixes biographical fact taken from Bergman's writing and family documents with a wild kaleidoscopic imagination to reveal the boy and the man behind the great filmmaker.

Genres: Sweden

234 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Alexander Ahndoril (born Alexander Gustafsson) is a Swedish novelist and playwright. His best-selling novel, Regissören (2006), about the film maker Ingmar Bergman, was published in English translation as The Director in 2008. Ahndoril was longlisted for The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2009.

His latest novel, The Hypnotist (2011), was written together with his wife, Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril, under the pen name Lars Kepler.

Reviews

[Zuzana Kucharová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book like one of Bergman´s movies: fragile and strong, full of dark, light and shadows, love and hate, family and friends, cries and whispers, geniality and naivety...

[målly]

bra stämning

[Maria Jurgielewicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chyba spodziewałam się czegoś więcej. Przyzwoita opowieść o tym, że nawet, jeśli wmawiamy sobie, że robimy coś dla samych siebie, to w rzeczywistości szukamy akceptacji u innych (czasem kosztem jeszcze innych ludzi). Kłamstwa, złość, desperacja, rozpacz, nierozwiązane problemy z dzieciństwa, które ciągną się za człowiekiem jeszcze długo po usamodzielnieniu. Ciekawy język.

[Moa Marken · Rating 1 out of 5]

Upprörande usel. Platt och styltig. Varje tillstymmelse till poetiskt uttryck kan spåras till Nattvardsgästerna eller Vilgot Sjömans dagbok.

[Nadya Mattsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Rebecka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I'm a huge Bergman fan. But ... Wow!

[Jamal Ohlsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful novel! Wow!