Vis­it­ing Ing­mar Bergman’s enchant­i­ng Swedish hideaway

There’s a fes­tive mood in Stock­holm this evening. The sum­mer sol­stice – known local­ly as Mid­sum­mer, one of Sweden’s biggest nation­al hol­i­days – has just passed and peo­ple are in high spir­its. On the way to Brom­ma air­port to catch my con­nect­ing flight, the taxi dri­ver strikes up some cham­pagne small talk before ask­ing what has brought me here. After explain­ing that I’m Fårö bound, his expres­sion changes. ​“Ah, you’ve come to meet the demon director.”

The first thing that strikes you about Fårö is its remote­ness. Two flights, a 90-minute dri­ve and a short fer­ry ride make it an imprac­ti­cal des­ti­na­tion, but irre­spec­tive of its prox­im­i­ty to the main­land this is a place that feels lost in time. Signs of civil­i­sa­tion are sparse. The sin­gle-track road that cir­cuits the island is eeri­ly qui­et, save a scat­ter­ing of mot­tled grey sheep. All around, open fields specked with white rock and bright­ly coloured wild flow­ers yield to dense pine forests that con­ceal metre-high anthills and seem­ing­ly aban­doned log cab­ins. It’s easy to see how Bergman fell under Fårö’s spell – it is an enchant­i­ng place.

Upon my arrival at a quaint guest­house called Gåsemo­ra (the clos­est thing to a hotel on the island), the taxi driver’s words con­tin­ues to per­co­late. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Swedish Film Insti­tute is here to meet me, and she too sug­gests that there were more than a few skele­tons in Bergman’s closet.

Däm­ba Cin­e­ma, Bergman’s pri­vate 15-seat screen­ing room, is the first port of call on my pil­grim­age. Bergman’s eldest daugh­ter, Lena, greets me and begins recall­ing how her father would watch a film in this mod­est barn, con­vert­ed in 1967, every day at three o’clock sharp. He would often invite rel­a­tives and friends, scold­ing any tardy guests. I set­tle into one of the plush green arm­chairs (Bergman’s front-row seat remains strict­ly reserved), to watch Shame, one of six Bergman films shot on Fårö fol­low­ing his arrival on the island in 1960 while loca­tion scout­ing for Through a Glass Dark­ly. A crush­ing­ly aus­tere por­trait of war and moral pan­ic, Shame depicts Fårö not as a place of vir­ginal tran­quil­li­ty but as a harsh, soul­less land. Is this how Bergman tru­ly saw it?

Exit­ing through the pro­jec­tion room, I glimpse a sign which hints at Bergman’s mis­chie­vous sense of humour. ​‘SE FIL­MEN – OM DU TÖRS!’ ​‘See this film – if you dare!

The offi­cial open­ing of Bergman Week in Fårö’s small church is a solemn occa­sion. Musi­cian Andreas Kleerup per­forms a hand­ful of bal­lads with a string duet, includ­ing the haunt­ing ​‘Thank God for Send­ing Demons’. In the grounds, Bergman’s head­stone is inscribed with the name of his last wife, Ingrid, who was buried in Stock­holm in 1995 but relo­cat­ed to Fårö fol­low­ing the death of her hus­band in 2007. Bergman may not have been an advo­cate of monogamy – he fathered nine chil­dren by six dif­fer­ent women – but it’s com­fort­ing to know he’s at peace along­side the woman he claimed to have loved longer than any other.

A bar­be­cue at a ram­shackle din­er pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet some of the locals who knew Bergman. They’re a dis­arm­ing but illu­sive bunch, spin­ning camp­fire yarns while smudg­ing key dates and details. You start to won­der whether they’re being inten­tion­al­ly ambigu­ous, as if to keep Bergman cocooned in his own self-spun leg­end. How well did they real­ly know him? Was their neigh­bourli­ness rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed through­out his 40 years here? There don’t appear to be any straight answers. Truth and fic­tion are becom­ing hard to separate.

The strength of Bergman’s bond with Fårö is most evi­dent at the Bergman Cen­ter. A looped sound bite from Fårö Doc­u­ment, Bergman’s 1970 doc­u­men­tary about the island, echoes through the cor­ri­dors. ​“Ever since my ear­ly child­hood I have felt root­less wher­ev­er I’ve been. It is only since I came to Fårö that I have felt at home in the world.”

How much did this island influ­ence Bergman and how much has his celebri­ty impact­ed it? Tourist-tai­lored shrines like the Wild Straw­ber­ries Café stand as tes­ta­ment to the lat­ter, but the peo­ple here – even those cash­ing in on Bergman’s lega­cy – are fierce­ly pro­tec­tive of him.

I’m invit­ed to Bergman’s pri­vate res­i­dence, Ham­mars. Pass­ing through the razor-wired secu­ri­ty gate trig­gers an omi­nous Dan­tean verse that booms out from a loud­speak­er, warn­ing tres­passers to stay away. The exte­ri­or is cold and com­pound-like. More razor wire fringes the near-win­dow­less out­er walls, while fall­en pine cones lit­ter the unkempt driveway.

Inside, I’m instruct­ed to change into slip­pers before enter­ing the liv­ing room. Bergman built this res­i­dence in the 1970s, and it has been kept just as he left it. Not even the sheets on his deathbed have been changed. Today it stands as a time cap­sule of ​’70s décor – cream car­pet, orange-brown uphol­stery, pine pan­el walls and ceil­ings. Down a long cor­ri­dor sits Bergman’s office, a sani­tised white space offer­ing serene dra­mat­ic views of the Baltic Sea. I’m reli­ably told that Bergman would sit here and watch the world go by for hours at a time, the majesty and tran­quil­li­ty of nature sooth­ing his well-doc­u­ment­ed neuroses.

The entire east wing of the house is ded­i­cat­ed to Bergman’s per­son­al libraries, con­tain­ing an impres­sive VHS archive and col­lec­tions of his ear­ly note­books, man­u­scripts, let­ters and oth­er per­son­al doc­u­ments. The names Buñuel, Tarkovsky and Truf­faut sit cosi­ly along­side Spiel­berg, Stal­lone and Schwarzeneg­ger. Copies of The Blues Broth­ers and Sin­gin’ in the Rain appear to have watched mul­ti­ple times.

Mov­ing through the house, it’s impos­si­ble not to notice pat­terns on the walls, floors and fur­ni­ture. The immac­u­late­ly fur­nished house is cov­ered in infan­tile graf­fi­ti, hand-scrawled mem­os that range from play­ful to inde­ci­pher­able – the words ​‘Warn­ing: Slip­pery as Hell’ mark the bath­room floor, while a bed­side dress­er dou­bles as a spon­ta­neous jour­nal of Bergman’s night­mares. Amid the fran­ti­cal­ly scrib­bled ink stains there is one con­stant, a car­toon dev­il motif that became the director’s sig­na­ture – a last­ing sym­bol of his tor­ment­ed genius. Before com­ing to Fårö, Bergman was a rest­less spir­it, and although he nev­er quite con­quered his demons, he found pre­cious soli­tude here.