Wild Strawberries

Bergman's films, to state the blindingly obvious, are the complete antithesis of the mindcandy (A Beautiful Mind) presented to cinemagoers in sterile multiplexes. They are almost like cinematic art forms, meditations on life and its meanings but, like many works of art, they can be obscure, challenging and demand patience to understand their underlying subtexts. Even after a 2nd viewing!

'Wild Strawberries' deals with the past, memories & regrets. It's about an inner journey about one man's subjective state of mind as he sees nostalgic memories of childhood & lost love (regret), surreal visions of denial (mortality) and unsettling weird dreams which hint at a self-awareness and truth that he cannot face in reality.

I was touched by Victor Sjostrom's performance as the elderly Prof. Isak Borg reflecting upon his life, and moved by the final emotional scenes where he achieves an inner peace. Is it slightly deceiving, a cop-out that Borg finds peace at the sight of his father and mother, 'the point before betrayal, before the messiness of life' intervenes as another reviewer stated? Well, I think it's commonly accepted that most people, as they grow older, tend to remember more from their past & childhoods. Why? Perhaps because it reminds them of a time of lost innocence.

What I found quite difficult to understand was how Isak is supposed to be this cold-hearted rationalist; Sjostrom's touching depiction makes this troubled old man quite endearing (viz the young travelling companions affection for him). Perhaps, as the opening suggests, this is a man who has shied away from intimate contact, whose coldness drove his unhappy late wife into the arms of another and who has approached life solely on his own (egotistic) terms leading to loneliness.

This is where the allusion to wild strawberries becomes significant as it is the symbol of regeneration: through his inner journey, mixing dream & reality, Borg sees the truth about his life and its emptiness. The film charts his growing intimacy with his daughter-in-law and an eventual inner peace.

The film sounds typically Scandinavian in its gloom but it is also a celebration of youth as well as a study of mortality and one man's mind. It's also not without comedy, particularly the old Prof's relationship with his housekeeper Agfa and the absurd boxing match about 'God'(Bergman parodying himself) between the two young hitchhikers.

What makes the film so intriguing is how characters/situations often reflect one another (Borg & his son, their coldness and attitude to life); these parallels extend to the point where characters even play dual roles: Bibi Andersson as Sara (the lost love & then the young vivacious traveller) and a cruel husband who later appears as the stern examiner in an unsettling dream. It's a highly complex pattern of subtle connections (stream of consciousness)that, as Borg states at the end, forms some sort of logical order. ....................................................................................................................

2021 addition. I recently heard Charles Causley's poem 'Eden Rock' which is about the older poet encountering his parents as he remembers them when young, and they beckon him to cross the drifting stream (the passage between life & death).

'Crossing is not as hard as you might think."

I'm not sure I understand all the meanings in this film, but feel the above poem illuminates the final scene of the film, perhaps with the old Professor coming to terms with his life & mortality.

The laws of life are hard to follow, they'll often lead to mournful sorrow, because there are no hard set rules, except those conjured by naive fools. So when the hands fall off the clock, the sands of time run out and stop, it's far too late to contemplate, your influence on your own fate. So as your winters fast approach, cold days of melancholic reproach, observe the worlds that could have been, compare them to the ones you've seen. It's seldom late to change your mind, free yourself from pedantic grind, to avoid worst case scenario, having scattered seed, in sterile furrow.

Victor Sjöström is outstanding as the reflective pedant who's missed the boat.

Wild Strawberries can be praised for so many reasons, but chief among them in my own mind is the way in which the film so perfectly conveys its themes of self-examination and the contemplation of one's own mortality (particularly through its stunning use of flashbacks). Bergman's autobiographical story also benefits from the brilliant casting of Swedish film legend Victor Sjostrom as Isak Borg, whose towering performance is essential to the success of Wild Strawberries. I read that Bergman based the coffin dream sequence on a frequent nightmare that he had -- and it never ceases to amaze me just how effective it remains even after all these years. Wild Strawberries seems like a quiet, thoughtful, introsepective movie -- and it is; it is also one of world cinema's most impressive motion pictures.

In Ingmar Berman's film masterpiece Smultronstallet (or ‘Wild Strawberries' B&W, 1957), the protagonist, an elderly professor who is facing death, has to come to face to face with a long life that has failed to answer the important questions. He is old now and faced with his own inadequacy and impotence.

Bergman introduces three young people into the drama to introduce life's most important question – that of the existence of God. The old man gives them a ride. One of the young men is thinking about becoming a parson; the other argues that God doesn't exist. The old man offers no opinion to the debate. He is silent, but it is a loud silence. It's a silence that reveals an amazing dimension of loss – the loss of year upon year of not coming to terms with this all-important question.

In one of the final scenes, Bergman masterfully closes in tight on the aged face of Professor Isak Borg (played by Victor Sjostrom). In that shot, we can see the whole universe in his eyes and all of its cares in the bags beneath them. Only Bergman could have directed that scene – only him. It makes Smultronstallet one of the most important films ever made. That one scene, better than any other that I know, captures ‘loss' on celluloid for all future generations to witness. If you see it, you may find yourself having to look away.

The imagery in Smultronstallet is unparalleled, except by Bergman's own Sjunde inseglrt, Det (The Seventh Seal, 1957). Look for the handless watch, the corpse wagon, the sparseness of the first scene, the car windows turning to black – ominous signs are everywhere. Notice the clues that point to Bergman's existential philosophy (the twins write a song for a deaf man – as futile as Sisyphus' labor!) and the redemption themes (Izak pierces his hand as he looks into the window, or the line: `A doctor's first duty is to ask for forgiveness.'). Notice also the outright defiance of the divine presence that he has bred into his son (`I will not be forced to live one day longer than I want to.').

Izak is ready to die, but it seems that, for him, life is more forbidding than death. He is a living corpse, dead already in nearly every way. All of these factors conspire to create a masterwork of pure art, and one that gets richer with each repeated viewing.

The film is also cathartic in the sense that Greek drama was cathartic – a warning to the men of ancient Greece to avoid the tragic flaw that undoes the hero - and may be a fateful knock on the door of your undoing as well. Have we answered the question that Izak has not? If not, Izak is us. Look hard - very hard - at Izak. Do you like what you see? To quote a line from the film: `Is there no mercy?' `Don't ask me.' I hope that all of us will fare better when confronted with the film's important question.

I'd seen "Wild Strawberries" as a college freshman when it was first released, and knew right away I'd be a Bergman fan from then on.

I watched it again just last night, January 2004, at age 63, and needless to say got a whole different perspective on the film. Where the surrealist touches, moody photography, and incredibly smooth direction had made the big hit with me as a near boy, as an aging man I found myself--I hesitate to say painfully, but...well, closely--identifying with old Isak Borg in his strange pilgrimage, both interior and exterior, the day he receives his honorary degree at the cathedral in Lund.

In the last twenty minutes or so of the movie, I found tears running down my face, not from any thrilling sentimental browbeating (I doubt if Mr. Bergman shot five seconds' worth of sentimentality in his whole long career!) but simply from the cumulative emotional impact of this simple, powerful story and its probing revelation of human character, desire, and chagrin.

By the time the film ended, I felt wrung out, disoriented, happy and deeply sad at the same time: it's the experience the Greeks wanted their tragedies to convey to the spectator; they spoke of "katharsis." I experienced it firsthand when I had the great good fortune to see a production (in English) of "Medea." I walked away in tears and scarcely able to think straight for an hour or so.

The same thing happened with "Wild Strawberries." This is one of the handful of films I unhesitatingly rate a "ten."

A side note: I watched the Criterion Collection DVD. Before the film itself, I watched the hour-long interview conducted in 1998 by Jorn Donner included on the disc. It was remarkable to see how the film Bergman shot ca. 1957 contains many elements that were to be present in his later life--like a foreshadowing of his own old age.