"1926: the Bergman family spends a summer holiday in the lush Swedish countryside, with eight-year-old Ingmar troubled by glimpses of sexuality and death and by his relationship with his father, Pastor Bergman, who is variously friendly, forbidding, nurturing, violent. 1968: middle-aged Ingmar Bergman, cold and unforgiving, pays a visit to his father, who's confused, and fearful about his approaching death. Advancing on these twin fronts via some beautifully timed cuts, the picture proceeds towards two moments of reconciliation over 40 years apart. Immensely sympathetic, viewed either as a self-contained work or as part of the Bergman canon, it is written by Ingmar and directed by his son Daniel."

"Scripted by Ingmar Bergman and directed by his son Daniel, this autobiographical reverie about the older Bergman's childhood and family life is set mainly in the country during the summer of 1926, though there are flash-forwards to 1968, when Bergman's pastor father, nearing death, undergoes a crisis involving his relationship to his late wife. Shot in beautiful locations and often affecting, this can't be called a Bergman film in the sense that Fanny and Alexander can, apart from its subject matter. The direction of Daniel Bergman is competent rather than inspired; it's also relatively detached, but insofar as Bergman fils is wrestling with his father's demons rather than his own, the distance seems understandable."