Wild Strawberries (1957)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Just perfect...

I wanted to but couldn't!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

I think Dr. Borg's car deserves a credit too. It seems to be a Packard 1937. Thank you.

The actor, screenwriter and director Victor Sjöstrom was a major figure in the silent film of the early 20th century. Decades later, when film had long since transitioned to talkies and Sjöstrom had disappeared from the scene, focusing instead on theatre, Ingmar Bergman called him back for the 1957 effort WILD STRAWBERRIES. And instead of trying to evoke the great achievements of Sjöstrom's younger days, Bergman let this now 78-year-old man depict with no holds barred what old age and the thought of imminent death are really like.As the film opens, we are introduced to Professor Isak Borg (Sjöstrom), who started out as a provincial doctor but made some new medical discoveries and established a shining career in academia. Borg must travel to the distant Swedish city of Lund to accept an honorary degree from the university there, and he decides to drive the whole distance. He is accompanied by his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), who had been staying with him after a row with Borg's son Evald, and who eventually takes the wheel for the old man. Along the way they pick up three young hitchhikers, and later they get into a fender-bender with an unhappy married couple.Initially Borg's housekeeper and Marianne are puzzled that the elderly professor wants to drive all that way, but we soon discover that the route passes some places from Borg's younger days. Flashbacks that are shown during stops, and the professor's own dreams as he doses off, reveal feelings of regret and guilt that the old man had been harbouring all his life. The three hitchhikers in the bloom of youth remind Borg even more sharply of his elderly state, and the married couple only serves as a reminder of his own unhappy family life. He is tormented by the thought that he has little time left to set things right with those close to him that he had alienated years, even decades, before.WILD STRAWBERRIES is very touching, and it is one of those films where the main character is played in such a great bit of acting that all the other details hardly matter. Still, the supporting roles are memorable. Bibi Andersson plays two roles that are worlds apart. In one, Andersson is the main hitchhiker character, a sort of liberated woman and tomboy. The other role is Borg's early love interest, a woman reflective of upper-class society in early 20th-century Sweden with all its strict ideas about proper female behaviour. Other longtime members of Bergman's stable appear: Max von Sydow as a rural petrol station attendant, and Gunnar Björnstrand as Borg's son that takes all too after the old man.In spite of the film's strengths, I must admit that WILD STRAWBERRIES is not among my favourite Bergman efforts. It seems especially flawed by one subplot: among the hitchhikers that Borg takes, two of them are always squabbling about whether God exists. I find this bears very little relationship with the protagonist's dilemma (Borg himself doesn't muse on what they say), and instead it's like Bergman was trying to shoehorn in the religious themes of his other major films of this era, such as THE SEVENTH SEAL. Still, even what I feel to be lesser Bergman is still great cinema, and I imagine most viewers will enjoy this poignant tale.

Grouchy, stubborn and egotistical Professor Isak Borg is a widowed 78- year-old physician who specialized in bacteriology. Before specializing he served as general practitioner in rural Sweden. He sets out on a long car ride from Stockholm to Lund to be awarded the degree of Doctor Jubilaris 50 years after he received his doctorate from Lund University. He is accompanied by his pregnant daughter-in-law Marianne who does not much like her father-in-law and is planning to separate from her husband, Evald, Isak's only son, who does not want her to have the baby, their first.During the trip, Isak is forced by nightmares, daydreams, old age and impending death to reevaluate his life. He meets a series of hitchhikers, each of whom sets off dreams or reveries into Borg's troubled past. The first group consists of two young men and their companion, a woman named Sara who is adored by both men. Sara is a double for the love of Isak's youth. The first group remains with him throughout his journey. Next Isak and Marianne pick up an embittered middle-aged couple, the Almans, whose vehicle has nearly collided with theirs. The pair exchanges such terrible vitriol and venom that Marianne stops the car and demands that they leave. The couple reminds Isak of his own unhappy marriage. In a dream sequence, Isak is asked by Sten Alman, now the examiner, to read "foreign" letters on the blackboard. He cannot. So, Alman reads it for him: "A doctor's first duty is to ask forgiveness," from which he concludes, "You are guilty of guilt."

For us seasoned film viewers, a film like "Wild Strawberries" carries some resonance. It invites both a retrospective and introspective look into one's own life with all it's triumphs along with the disappointments, lost loves and unfinished business that are a part of that sometimes undisciplined thing called life. If done honestly, as in the case of Dr. Isak Borg (Victor Sjostrom), the look back may dredge up moments of recrimination and a wish that things had been done differently. Borg's memories are further haunted by strange dreams that summon up things like empty streets, ruined buildings and faceless men; the horse drawn hearse spilling it's coffin to reveal his own corpse is a precursor to a later dream in which a judge pronounces him guilty of incompetence, callous behavior, selfishness and a ruthlessness as cold as ice. Borg begins to see and understand that his behavior throughout life has also infected those very close to him, including a distant son who lives to carry on his father's traits. Through chance encounters with hitchhikers on the way to picking up an honorary degree, and an unplanned reconciliation with his daughter-in-law, Borg seeks redemption for some of those inadequacies before he's called upon to meet his Maker. Though the film closes on an optimistic note with Borg's dream of his father and mother waving to him on a sunlit beach, it's really up to the viewer to decide if the good Doctor has attained peace with his past. His reflective journey may have planted a seed of humanity in the man's heart, just as the picture challenges the viewer to contemplate one's own life and legacy.