A female director (Vicky Krieps), in a relationship with an older film-maker (Tim Roth), spends time at a creative retreat on the island of Faro in the Baltic Sea, famously the home and workplace of Ingmar Bergman. There she develops an idea about a young woman (played by Mia Wasikowska, in a beguiling film within the film), also a film-maker, visiting Faro for a wedding and reconnecting with her former lover (Anders Danielsen Lie).
Factor in the autobiographical element – Bergman Island’s writer-director, Mia Hansen-Løve, was herself in a relationship with an older film-maker, Olivier Assayas – and the story starts to feel like a refracting prism in its overlap of characters and creator. In the hands of Hansen-Løve, it’s a delicate millefeuille, layering story upon story, character upon character, until it’s hard to peel them apart.
