The 300-minute full version, the second Bergman I watched, this kind of family story reminds me of those Victorian or Russian 19th century novels, covering so much, complicated and detailed.
The part where Alexander fought his stepfather was really heart-wrenching. The bishop's mind control law is patriarchy plus thought tyrants. The key to being rescued is whether a soft childlike heart is willing to submit or is independent and self-aware in the face of an unspeakable conceptual fortress. In the face of a fake God who takes punishment as "love", the wings of imagination are still spreading freely.
The movie ends up giving us a happy ending that seems like a happy return. Only this boy with clear and deep eyes had evidently gained a far richer and more complex sense of self: the shadows that followed him, and the light that he already lived in.
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