When Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel was 9 years outdated, he turned conscious that his grandfather was a world-famous director: the Swedish grasp Ingmar Bergman.
Full of delight, he boasted about it to his substitute instructor, however he was quickly overwhelmed with disgrace and determined to by no means point out it once more. “I simply felt so dangerous bragging about it, as a result of I can’t take credit score for him being my grandfather,” he stated in a current video interview from Oslo.
Fortunately, Tøndel, 35, can now gloat about his personal film accomplishments. His first function, “Armand,” in U.S. theaters Friday, received the Digicam d’Or on the Cannes Movie Competition final 12 months and was shortlisted for the very best worldwide function movie Oscar, representing Norway.
A tense ethical thriller with dashes of magical realism, “Armand” stars Renate Reinsve (of “The Worst Particular person within the World” fame) as Elisabeth, an actress and mom summoned to her 6-year-old son’s college after the boy is accused of inappropriate conduct.
Elisabet, in flip, is the title of the actress character in Bergman’s intriguing 1966 drama “Persona” (performed by Tøndel’s grandmother Liv Ullmann), a coincidence Tøndel attributed to a unconscious connection. But Tøndel did consciously embrace a shot in “Armand” that’s an Easter egg reference to Bergman, he stated. He prefers to maintain the temporary homage a secret so audiences can uncover it on their very own.
Tøndel stated he cherished the recollections of the childhood summers he spent with Bergman on the director’s property in Fårö, a Swedish island within the Baltic Sea. It was a “childhood paradise,” Tøndel recalled, the place he watched Charlie Chaplin movies along with his grandfather in Bergman’s movie show.
As a result of the recollections have been so robust, Tøndel stated, he refused to observe Mia Hansen-Løve’s 2021 movie “Bergman Island,” which is ready on Fårö. “I most likely wouldn’t prefer it,” he stated. “It’s like any individual made a movie in your own home and also you didn’t find out about it.”
As he grew older, Tøndel tried to get as distant as doable from filmmaking.
“It felt prefer it had been accomplished fairly effectively within the household, so why ought to I do it?” he stated. As a substitute, Tøndel studied psychology after which economics, however neither appeared like a proper match, he stated. Ultimately a journalism course wherein he made brief movies introduced him again to cinema.
As soon as Tøndel enrolled in a correct movie college, the reluctant director lastly felt as if he’d discovered his place, he stated. For Tøndel, the method of creating films is akin to a mindfulness follow that enables him to really feel current. However in an effort to carve his personal method, he hid his household ties.
“I didn’t use my surname in movie college,” he stated. “So far as I do know, no person knew who I used to be the grandchild of till, like, the third 12 months. It was fairly essential for me simply to be myself and never be seen by way of the ‘grandchild of Bergman’ factor.”
Bergman died when Tøndel was 17, lengthy earlier than Tøndel turned critical about cinema. “I didn’t talk about Tarkovsky with my grandfather after I was 10 years outdated,” he stated, laughing. Now, he wished he may speak to him, not as a grandfather, however as a fellow filmmaker.
To stop himself from being influenced as he honed his personal cinematic voice, Tøndel didn’t begin watching Bergman’s huge filmography till he turned 30, only a few years in the past.
That selection additionally preserved the excellence between his relationship with Bergman because the grandfather who held him in his arms and stimulated his creativeness with tales of witches and ghosts, and the honored director the world is aware of by way of his movies.
Talking about Bergman isn’t notably pleasing for Tøndel, who’s needed to steadiness his want to honor and respect his lineage whereas pushing to be seen as an unbiased entity.
When “Armand” screened final 12 months as a part of Bergman Week, an annual celebration of the director’s work on the Bergman Heart on Fårö, Tøndel had an intense alternate throughout the post-film Q&A that he stated he was nonetheless processing. “There was one girl who got here to me and stated, ‘You tried to flee your grandfather’s legacy, however you possibly can’t,’” he recalled. “‘It’s in you, it’s in your movie.’”
That’s why Tøndel felt relieved by the constructive reception to “Armand,” which he began writing with Reinsve in thoughts in 2017. They’d collaborated on an unreleased brief movie, however Tøndel was solely capable of fund the longer challenge after Reinsve turned internationally acknowledged in 2021.
“It might’ve been tougher for me to construct myself up if my first function was an actual failure,” he stated. “As a result of then the load of the legacy would have been fairly laborious to hold.”
Nonetheless, out of the 700 or so interviews Tøndel has accomplished since “Armand” debuted at Cannes, on just one event has the reporter not talked about Bergman, Tøndel stated — and that shocked him.
“I hope that, after some time, information retailers begin to name me by my title and never as Ingmar Bergman’s grandson,” he added, half joking. “I’ve really began questioning if I ought to simply change my title to ‘Ingmar Bergman’s Grandson,’ so I can have my title within the headlines.”