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Sitting through watching Fanny and Alexander for the first time, I couldn’t deal with the whole thing at once just before going to sleep, so I stopped it about half way through when it started getting really dark.

Going through the remainder, I’m glad that I waited.  But before even finishing it I was amazed by a scene enough to stop watching and start thinking.  The film dialog makes mention that the events take place in 1907 (in Sweden).  Grandmother is sitting at a table sifting through a photo album, and her son jokes about how she is sifting through thousands of photographs.  In 1907.  To think that in that era with the great effort that went into taking even a single photo, and someone is already depicted overwhelmed by the mountain of memories:

And I know people today who have been taking digital photos vigorously for at least 10 years now, who have stacks of DVDs each of which contains hundreds of photos.  My own collection, assembled mostly since 2004, taken with what I thought was some critical eye to avoiding taking unnecessary shots, is well over 8000 photos.

Thinking about the meaning or lack and weight of all of those images.  Glancing over in the room as I type this I can see the three physical photographs that I brought home with me after my Grandmother died: one of her as a child in her mother’s arms, one of her father standing proudly by a car in pre-war Cuba.  One of her future husband standing on a ship at sea.

See this movie.  I don’t care what kind of movie you like.  Just see this

OK, If you are squeemish about blood, well, maybe you shouldn’t see this movie.

Spoilers! Below I discuss minor plot elements that you would have to be catatonic to not see a mile ahead.  Stuff that Spoiler crazies not unlike myself might still rather not know before seeing a movie.

Leonardo DeCaprio somehow manages to improve his already stellar acting credentials. The slow development of his friendship with his psychiatrist is so subtly and believably expressed that I strongly felt the characters’ connecting.  It is a rare quality that a cinematic romance appears not believable, but real.  Not just in the romance department, his character is conveyed with great emotional appeal.  Usually movie Heros come with cartoon morality, or “jaded worldliness” that seems equally artificial after endless repetition.  Here DiCaprio’s character somehow manages to be a beacon for us and yet alive, wounded, human.
Jack Nicholson must have a John Malchovich door into the Devil’s head, because he has spent a career honing his capacity to play the part.  In Scorcese’s Gangs of New York we got a villain that seemed human, a dark product of a vicious time.  With Jack this time around it is easy to say he is just pure evil, but he is much more impressive a villain than that, because he is also completely real, human, a dark and grimly driven fiend, pitiable in his life’s meaninglessness, frightening in his believability.

Damon’s performance is complicated.  He does an incredible job as well, so much so that I had some difficulty separating the actor and the character.  Both he and DiCaprio lie for a living, but Damon’s liar lies to protect the wolf that preys on us, and DiCaprio lies to protect us from the wolf.  DiCaprio’s character can’t sleep at night from the stress he is under.  Damon’s I imagine sleeps the peaceful sleep of the truly lost.

Although overall a pretty trivial film on the merits, something powerfully compelling is in there, at once grim and glowing, following the title character’s life through its arc of woeful interactions with other human beings.  Watch with someone you love, really.
SPOILERS, so just stop reading now alright?
Her later life turns further and further south as her trust in the people in her life runs out, and her will to live reaches its zenith.  Even then, her lover is terrified of hurting her again, so pushes her away, while her would-be rescuer (an old female friend) she pushes away herself, afraid of being hurt by more human interaction.

Despite all its melodramatic tricks, or in spite of myself and quite because of them, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to real life.  Beyond that, well, this isn’t my diary, it is a blog.