Arquivo

A Swedish cathedral town at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a theatre valued by all, a university heavy with tradition, a large and mighty minster. The town`s popular theatre was bought in the middle of the 19th century by a wealthy businessman, Oscar Ekdahl. At the time the film begins Helena Ekdahl is a widow, familiar with her role as head of the noisy Ekdahl family. She has handed the management of the theatre over to her eldest son and his wife. At first the story is chiefly about the Ekdahls and their troupe of actors, and everything is fairly idyllic. By degrees it takes in the cathedral and its bishop, Edvard Vergerus. He is a broad-shouldered man with a gentle voice, a well-fitting cassock and a hatred so fierce that it is not destroyed until his body is turned into a blazing pillar of fire. However strange it sounds, the 10-year-old boy, Alexander, is responsible for his death. Fanny is his younger sister. Fanny and Alexander is the story of one year in the life of the Ekdahl family.