Feature Film, 1992

Sunday's Children

Second part of the trilogy about Bergman's parents beginning with The Best Intentions and continued in Private Confessions. Directed by Daniel Bergman, screenplay by Ingmar Bergman.

"The story is a childhood memory."

Ingmar Bergman in Aftonbladet

About the film

Bergman's screenplay centres on a chapter in The Magic Lantern. He summed up the film in Aftonbladet as follows:

The story is a childhood memory. I had I believe – just had my eighth birthday and it's a Sunday at the end of July 1926. The family live in an indescribable Chehkov-esque summer house in Dalarna. There are lots of us: Mother, father, Aunt Emma, three children, 'Aunt' Märta, Maj the nanny (whom I love), the cook Lalla and a young female friend of the family called Marianne (whom I also love). Yet I love my beautiful mother most of all. On the Saturday afternoon my father arrives on the Stockholm train..

The director was Ingmar Bergman's son, Daniel, from his marriage to Käbi Laretei. Sunday's Children was his feature film debut.

Sources

The Ingmar Bergman Archives.
Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern.

Distribution titles

Niños del domingo (Spain)
Sunday's Children (USA)
Sunnuntailapsi (Finland)
Søndagsbarn (Denmark)
Søndagsbarn (Norway)

Production details

Production country: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway
Swedish distributor (35 mm): Sandrew Film & Teater AB
Laboratory: FilmTeknik AB
Production company: Sandrew Film & Teater AB, Svenska Filminstitutet, Sweetland Films BV, Sveriges Television AB Kanal 1, Metronome Productions A/S, Suomen Elokuvasäätiö, Kvikmyndasjóður Íslands, Norsk Film A/S, FilmTeknik AB, Eurimages du Conseil de l'Europe, Nordisk Film- & TV-fond

Aspect ratio: Wide screen
Colour system: Colour
Sound system: Dolby Stereo
Original length (minutes): 121

Censorship: 131.506
Date: 1992-07-23
Age limit: 11 years and over
Längd: 3320 metres

Release date: 1992-08-28, Sandrew, Göteborg, Sweden, 121 minutes
Metropol, Malmö, Sweden
Biografpalatset 3, Stockholm, Sweden
Olympia, Stockholm, Sweden

Music

Title: Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman Alternative title: Blinka lilla stjärna
Bearbetning: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1778)
Lyrics: Betty Ehrenborg-Posse (svensk text 1852)
Singer: Marie Richardson

Title: Songes
Composer: Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1849)
Lyrics: Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1849)
Singer: Marie Richardson

Title: Sonat, cello, op. 8
Composer: Zoltán Kodály (1915)
Instrumentalist: Frans Helmerson

Title: Concert, violin (2), string orchestra, BWV 1043, d-minor
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1717)

Title: Härlig är jorden Alternative title: Dejlig är Jorden
Lyrics: Bernhard Severin Ingemann (Danish lyrics 1850 - "Dejlig er Jorden")
Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg (Swedish lyrics 1884)

Ingmar Bergman scripted this elegiac and semi-autobiographical film, directed (in his debut) by his son Daniel Bergman. The story picks up a decade after The Best Intentions, the previous film written by Bergman, leaves off. Sunday's Children focuses on a young boy named Pu and his relationship with his father, a local pastor. Pu observes his father as he shifts from being a didactic preacher, to an ill-tempered husband, to a caring and devoted parent.