Wild Strawberries - Criterion Collection | Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson

Wild Strawberries - Criterion Collection | Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson | INGMAR BERGMAN, OPUS 18

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Wild Strawberries ...

	Wild Strawberries - Criterion Collection Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson Criterion, 2002 average customer review:based on 77 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The film that catapulted Bergman to the forefront of world cinema is the director's richest, most humane movie. Traveling to receive an honorary degree, Professor Isak Borg (masterfully played by the veteran Swedish director Victor Sjöström), is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and accept the inevitability of his approaching death. Through flashbacks and fantasies, dreams and nightmares, Wild Strawberries captures a startling voyage of self-discovery and renewed belief in mankind.

Journey into past

This is a film about loneliness, regrets, disappointments, self-discovery, existential anxiety, forgiveness, redemption, our vulnerabilities and failures as human beings, and the acceptance of the world as it is. It reaffirmed my belief that Aristotle was right when he said that "happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence" and that "learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain."

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INGMAR BERGMAN, OPUS 18

***** 1957. Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Golden Berlin Bear and Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Film category. An old doctor, solitary and egocentric, remembers his childhood while driving to an honorific appointment. Right after The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection that was a rather cold and desperate motion picture about Death, the Swedish master handles the same subject with a more human approach. WILD STRAWBERRIES is a psychoanalysis without psychiatrist and is undoubtedly a masterpiece. Take the time to watch the 75 minutes Bergman interview presented as bonus feature of this Criterion release. Bergman talks about his childhood, his writing, life and death. A DVD zone your library.

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A very touching, poignant film

This was my first Ingmar Bergman movie, and let's just say I was very impressed. While several reviewers have correctly noted that "Wild Strawberries" is full of symbolism (some of it hazy) and somewhat slow-moving, it is anything but plodding or dull. Rather, the film is pretty accessible to just about any audience, even a non-Swedish one, as it beautifully examines personal issues that will ultimately effect all of us: aging, regret, bitterness, and redemption. While I am completely unfamiliar with his work, I read that the star, Victor Sjosstrom was one of Sweden's finest actors in the early 20th Century. This is not surprising, for as the central character, Dr. Isak Borg, he carries both the film and emotional weight of his character with each utterance, grimace, and movement throughout the movie. As the movie progresses, I felt a host of emotions -- some negative, some positive -- for Dr. Borg as he evolved from an angry old man into a warm being that can accept his disappointments and is able to move on without any lingering bitterness.

Since several of the reviewers have already provided good summaries of the plot, I'll skip providing those details and instead focus on a small handful of the great scenes in the movie which really stuck with me. First, the dream sequences. A couple of Dr. Borg's dreams are tremendously eerie and piercing. The first one of note, which numerous other reviews have commenting on, appears at the very beginning, with Dr. Borg waking along completely empty streets until a carriage carrying his coffin goes by. When the carriage gets its wheel caught on a lamp-post, a creepy creaking noise emanates until the carriage breaks free and the coffin spills onto the street in front of Borg. After dead Borg's hand comes out and grabs the living Dr. Borg, I was awe-struck. Great scene, and of the better nightmare sequences you'll ever see in cinema.

Similarly, the dream where old Dr. Borg is sitting with young Sara, the love of life and his young fiance, is superb and shattering. It is very difficult not to feel empathy for Borg as Sara coldly tells him that she is going to marry his brother Siegfried, and then forces him to stare at his old face in a mirror before abruptly running off. Another wrenching, powerful scene.

I think, though, that the last five minutes of "Wild Strawberries" may be the best, most satifying part of the film. It is at the end that Dr. Borg finally realizes redemption for his life and disappointments, and is able to bask in the love of those who mattered most to him: Sara, his daughter-in-law Marianne, and the son whom he imparted his coldness to. When present-day Sara tells him he is the one she always loved, and he is able to lie in the warmth of pleasant dreams of his childhood, the journey ends for Borg and the viewer. This ending is exceptionally gratifying. While I am sure that Bergman's symbolism can be interpreted in a plethora of intelligent ways, the film struck me as kind of dark cinema, but with a moral that anyone can overcome their regrets and disappointments at any time, even at the very end of their life.

Four stars.

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Wild Strawberries

This is Bergman's first work where surreal sequences are imbedded in the picture. Though not intertwined with reality as in his later films but rather clearly separated from the flow as Borg's dreams, those scenes are terrific and must be very unusual at the time. Ingrid Thulin's calm beauty compliments her excellent performance greatly. There are a few minor but irritating details one cannot miss, particularly, the highway accident with the car hurling into a ditch as a football and its passengers getting out with a smile and without a scratch, and Sara and the boys. While Bibi Andersson looks just a bit older than the 17-year-old character she plays, the boys long forgot when they were that age, now both of mature complexion and well-shaven. Slightly over-hyped, it's a very good film nonetheless.

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Classy Swedish Number

Criterion is known for releasing totally 80s and 70s films on DVD that are foreign in the United States. And again this fails to pass the American rating system at even a PG 13 level that it should be at because it's in a third world dialect of the Swedish language. These films Criterion releases to us on DVD here in the states, are racist to its own people. While this film Wild Strawberries is easy to follow without reading the subtitles and nothing bad happens on screen, it's in a third world dialect of Swedish. This is actually a pretty good Swedish film minus the dialect, and is not remotely close to Criterion's release of Salo 120 Days of Sodom, Italians eating their own feces. Instead here in Wild Strawberries we have Swedes refusing to admit they're good looking, and that's it. The Only reasoin someone would want to move to Sweden is not its econimic security, but good looking single Swedish women are easy to come by in the country on Sweden, not the states.

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