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| Ingmar Bergman | 1957 |
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 Aging Death Scandinavia  |
Wild Strawberries is by Ingmar Bergman so you can probably just take for granted that it's brilliant. It is from 1957 so it's forty eight years old at the time of this writing. Seeing as it's forty eight years old, some of the ideas and concepts dealt with in the film are a bit dated. People thought a bit differently then. This film does a nice job of illustrating just that. The basic plot is pretty simple. Professor Isak Borg {Victor Sjöström} is given an honorary award by Lund University. Wild Strawberries documents his trip to receive the award. As the film begins, Isak is in his study. He tells us a bit about himself and his family and explains that he's leaving in the morning to pick up his award. Roll opening credits.
After the credits we see Isak in bed sleeping a bit uncomfortably. Isak continues his narration as he leads us through desolate streets in a dream sequence that's nearly an animated black and white {film} version of a painting by Magritte or Dali. Isak wakes from his dream, bright and early the next morning, which is something that irritates his housekeeper {Agda {Jullan Kindahl}} to no end. The two have a good natured argument regarding Isak's trip which wakes Marianne Borg {Ingrid Thulin} the wife of Isak's son, Evald {Gunnar Björnstrand}. Marianne wanders into the kitchen and laughingly chides the two combatants for making enough racket to get her out of bed.
Cut to the car where we listen in on a discussion between Isak and Marianne. We learn a bit more about Isak's life and relationships with his family. Isak decides to take a detour and visit the deserted home that he grew up in. Once there, Marianne decides to go swimming and Isak lies down in the spot where the wild strawberries grow. Isak turns out to be a trifle more tired than he thought and this cues the next dream sequence. In this surreal sequence we meet some of his family and listen to "the twins" harmonize in a song they wrote for their uncle. Isak is awakened by a young woman named Sara, {Bibi Andersson} who introduces him to her friends Viktor {Björn Bjelfvenstam} and Anders {Folke Sundquist}. The trio are traveling to Italy. Isak offers them a ride as far as Lundt.
Cut to a Volkswagen "Beetle" careening across the road into the path of Isak's car. The Beetle flips sideways and rolls into a small ravine on the side of the road. The five travelers get out and assist the folk in the Beetle, right the car and pull it out of the ditch. Cut to the seven of them traveling down the road in Isak's car. The two newcomers turn out to be unpleasant folk. Marianne, who's now driving, stops the car ands tosses them out on their ear. Later on, we visit a town that Isak used to practice in, spend some time with his mom, listen to Viktor and Anders argue the existence of god and watch as the dream sequences get more and more bizarre. Along the way, Isak learns a lot about himself and we learn a lot about Isak.
The idea of an old man coming to terms with himself and realizing just why and how his life has become such a lonely, desolate place has a lot of room for everything that makes for a good story. Bergman manages to take full advantage of that and to serve up the story in a unique and original way. Some of the dream sequences are really strange and nightmarish in stark contrast to the images of "life on the road". Bergman doesn't have the advantage of todays technology. There's not one digital effect in the film. He's still managed to put together a nifty, surreal movie... The {Criterion} DVD ships with a documentary called "Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work" which is basically an interview with Ingmar interspersed with clips from some of his work. It's pretty interesting. It's nice to hear Bergman talk about himself. It sort of brings the legend into focus.
