Thursday, April 5, 2012

A Few (Swedish) Chosen Words

I was in Sweden recently, researching travel stories on Stockholm and the university town of Uppsala, a lovely place just a 40-minute, $11USD train ride north of the Swedish capital. Uppsala is where the late, great filmmaker Ingmar Bergman was born and where he shot exteriors for his 1982 memory play and farewell to cinema, "Fanny and Alexander.''

Flipping through a book about Bergman, I came across this passage - translated from the Swedish for unilingual film fanatics and travel addicts like me - that Bergman has the grandmother recite in "Fanny and Alexander.'' In the movie, she is quoting the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg's "A Dream Play'':

"Anything can happen; anything is possible and likely. Time and space do not exist; on an insignificant basis of reality, the imagination spins and weaves new patterns.''

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