Kasey Driscoll 2008-09-29

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

It is certainly fair to say that much of Igmar Bergman's work (The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander) takes an experienced mind to fully appreciate. As elitist as I'm in danger of sounding for writing that, I do believe it, but I will also concede that I am by no means experienced enough in life to appreciate Wild Strawberries fully. It makes me wonder why a film like Wild Strawberries would be shown in film classes to budding and perhaps talented artists, but not unlike me, they are most likely novices at life. Dr. Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) is not a novice. He knows what it is like to lose love and surrender to something less. He knows exactly what it is like to be lulled and deceived by life's trials. For so long he was dead in life and would become alive again during the process of his death. It is a bittersweet and profoundly beautiful realization that Dr. Borg is compelled to find in this truly amazing film.

Wild Strawberries follows the one day journey of 76 year old medical scientist Isak Borg. Isak was born into a family of ten children and he is the only one alive today. He has been a doctor for fifty years, a father for probably more than thirty years, a widower for some time, and socially he has withdrawn quite a bit. He is being rewarded for his professional accomplishments and he travels to his destination to receive his honors. Through interactions with various characters, through triggered memories, and sometimes through horrific dream sequences, this film turns out to be a meditation on Dr. Borg's life. It is ultimately about a man in the twilight of his life gazing into the mirror, perhaps for the final time, to find some level of resolution and comfort.

There are so few filmmakers today making existential road films like this. Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Children of Men) comes to mind. It's so rare to find something so deep and succinct. Most films that rely to any degree of making philosophical statements through dream sequences and similar devices are often reduced to being vague, cryptic, and sometimes even pretentious. Wild Strawberries provides both a glimpse into the psychology of Dr. Borg as well as a more macrocosmic spirituality some viewers will empathize with and find endlessly rewarding. It is a film about nerves and dread but at the same time it is a film about authentic self-identity, satisfaction, and peace. There's a lot to learn here. This is a film to enjoy multiple times for sure.

Cosmoetica 2008-09-24

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Watching Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries for the first time was an interesting experience because of three reasons. One, the film itself is terrific. Two, I watched it the same night as the 2006 Academy Awards, and was struck by how Bergman's film never condescends to its viewer, unlike the major nominated Politically Correct films Hollywood churns out and rewards. Three, having always known of Bergman from the films of American filmmaker Woody Allen, I was struck at just how much Allen steals from Bergman in many of his films- from camera angles and techniques, to outright theft of scenes. Not that I am accusing Allen of wrongdoing, for T.S. Eliot basically admitted that if an artist is to steal, they should steal from the greats, and Bergman crafted a great film, rife for purloining, back in 1957.
The story the film tells is rather simple- it's a road film that journeys into the past and psyche of a retired widower and Professor of Medicine named Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström). Sjöström was apparently a greatly influential actor and director in the first few decades of Swedish cinema, but by 1957 had spent a decade or more in declining reputation. This film and role sealed his immortality. It is a great performance, and one which a lesser actor could easily have gone over the top with. There is a perfect modulation to not only his performance, but to every aspect of the film, starting with Bergman's stellar screenplay. I would be hard pressed to think of a great film, or even a good one, that lacks a good screenplay. This is one of the ironies of film, versus the other visual arts- it's almost wholly dependent upon an art form, writing, with an entirely different paradigm.
Bergman was wise to have his film clock in at a mere hour and a half. It is a small, personal film, despite its cosmic undertones and themes. In a sense it balances the best of the dramas of Shakespeare and Chekhov, which is where the plays of Ibsen and Strindberg, Bergman's two greatest claimed influences, reside. He also wisely fills the detritus of Borg's life with symbolism that others- in the film or out- can interpret, but to Borg are just there. In a sense, the most important scene in the film, the one which acts as a fractal refraction of the whole film, is that where Borg and his mother pick through the old box of children's things as Marianne looks coldly on, misinterpreting both mother and son for her own reasons. For this reason, Wild Strawberries stands out not only as a great piece of cinema, but its screenplay as a great piece of literature. And given the multivalence of such art as this, to skillfully combine great imagery with great storytelling in a poetic vein, it's no wonder that film has become the dominant art form of the last half century, supplanting the novel and painting, just as they had supplanted poetry and the romance.
Let me end this essay where I began, lamenting the greatness of this film juxtaposed with the supposedly `great' films that Hollywood proffered for Oscars this year. It is like comparing a rich, diverse banquet with a greasy bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Period. One of the complaints that I have always found valid about great art is how it is usually always too expensive for the average person to enjoy- be it paintings in swank galleries, small books of poetry several times the price of novels, outrageously priced theater and opera tickets, or even foreign films on video or DVD. This was one of the major reasons it took me so long to watch this film, because the DVD I purchased, from The Criterion Collection, retails for $39.95, while your average Hollywood blockbuster can retail for a third that, or less. Is it any wonder, then, that the masses choose swill to fill their free time? In the name of raising up the filmic awareness and appreciation for the great films of the past, foreign or domestic, like Wild Strawberries, I urge companies that distribute foreign films to do their best to make good quality DVDs of such classics available more cheaply, for there is a market to be filled with great affordable art, and once a taste of greatness is given, the market will only expand, and justify the demotic impulse to lower prices with an increased quantity of sales making up for loss of high profit margins per unit. Dover Thrift Editions in America, and Wordsworth Editions in the U.K. have proven that great books cheaply distributed is an economically viable strategy, and I believe the same is true for great films. Why should films like Wild Strawberries remain only in the province of film snobs, and not made available to compete for viewership with contemporary schlock like Brokeback Mountain or Crash simply for economic reasons? Greatness in art may exact a price from its creators, but price should not diminish art's reach. Great films like Wild Strawberries deserve to be freed to the masses, to be enjoyed and enlightened. Watch it and you will agree.

Reader 2008-09-08

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Touching firm by Ingmar Bergman about an elderly man, at the end of his life, making a final journey that would be his own attempt to reconcile his life. The main character is 78 year old man, a doctor and an intellectual who on his way to receive an honorary doctorate degree from the university meets people and places along the way that help him reflect on his childhood, youth, marriage, career and reconcile all of that in preparation for the inevitable death. Like all Bergman's movies, this one has its own pace, metaphors and beauty. One can only hope that at the end of our lives we can all find the peace that main character in this film does. Absolute classic.

Kerry Walters 2008-07-22

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So says Professor Isak* Borg (Victor Sjostrom), the protagonist in "Wild Strawberries," who's been having some frightening dreams that call into question his whole life. Beginning with the famous opening scene of Borg's nightmare of loneliness, isolation, and death, the film moves us between past and present with a series of day dreams and sleep dreams, some of them pleasant memories, some of them bitter memories, some of them forboding nightmares that speak to the aging Borg's anxiety that his life has somehow gone wrong.

The film is wonderfully conceived: a one-day car journey symbolizing Borg's life journey; Borg's "dream" encounter with the past, especially his memories of his cousin Sara, symbolized by his present encounter with youth in the form of the hitchhiker Sara (both roles cleverly played by Bibi Anderesson); the continuity of coldness between generations, from mmother to son to grandson; Borg's daughter-in-law Marianne's decision that the child in her womb will break the pattern of alienation characteristic of the Borgs; the nonsexual intimacy between Professor Borg and his housemaid that Borg never found with his wife. Past merges into present, the future seems now (hitchhiker Sara; Marianne's pregnancy), and the message is one of great hope. Even a life that's gone wrong can be redeemed.

The performances are stellar. Ingrid Thulin is superb as the wounded but strong Marianne (she's also stunningly beautiful). Bibi Andersson is perfect as the spunky teenager Sara (present-day). Max von Sydow, although he has only a walk-on role, is touching and convincing. Even Gunnar Bjornstrand, an incredibly wooden actor in every performance I've ever seen, is good here--precisely because his role calls for a wooden, emotionally shutdown man. And Victor Sjostrom is simply magnificent, capturing with heartbreaking realism the nostalgia and regrets, but also dignity and wisdom, of old age.

So why do I give the film only 4 stars? I just don't think the dream sequences work all that well. As in the overture to "Persona," they strike me as overdone and sometimes heavy-handed, particularly the opening nightmare and the latter examination dream. I could forgive this. But what I found almost unbearable was the mawkishness of the summer house scenes, where everyone is happy and wholesome, somewhat reminiscent of the syrupy "It's a Wonderful Life." Perhaps Bergman intended them as such--a kind of parody of middle-class, late nineteenth- century contentment. But I don't think so. That interpretation really does seem forced. So the only conclusion to be drawn is that Bergman meant them as genuinely happy memories, and they come off as grindingly pollyanna-like.

So "Wild Strawberries" isn't one of my favorite Bergman films. But it's a great one nonetheless.
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*Is there some significance in the fact that almost all the film's characters have Hebraic names? Knowing Bergman, there must be.

Homunculus 2008-07-19

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

In 1975 my literature professor told us we were going to study the greatest movie ever made and it was about an old man driving an old car to receive an award for being a good doctor. Plus, instead of Technicolor, it was in black & white. On top of that, the firm was in Swedish and I would have to read the English subtitles. But never fear, with the promise of such an exhilarating, action-packed movie, he planned on showing it twice in a row, and wagered all who attended the first screening would stay for the second. And he nailed it.

We began by reading the stage play, which is the same as the screenplay. Then we had a chance to see the film. I indeed watched both showings and it changed my thinking about what makes a good "film" (this was way too highbrow for my young self to call a movie, but now I think "movie" is the right word, because the action, plot and production are all so powerful, against all odds! This movie is a blockbuster!)

At the time I was a wild boy about campus who's taste for movies was more action/adventure, western and mystery/suspense. The funny thing about Wild Strawberries is there's a little of all those genre's in it (if you understand what a cowboy Bergman was at this point in his career).

This is the story about the late-life introspection of an elderly physician. It really appears on the surface to be about as dull a concept for a film as one could ever want to suffer through. But this is a story about facing reality, and reality is rarely dull. The plot moves seamlessly through many phases, but much of it involves a road trip through the Swedish countryside.

A few years ago I bought a DVD of the 70's cult car-chase flick "Vanishing Point"; I hadn't seen it since the drive-in in my college years. I also own a Criterion Collection copy of Wild Strawberries and I've watched both recently. I realized that Wild Strawberries is a car chase flick as well.

But Bergman's Isak (played by Victor Sjöström) is not running from war weariness but from a life of nihilism cloaked in the old-world respectability of a family doctor. The chase is his lifetime of self-certainty, agnosticism and increasing isolation finally catching up to him. He realizes that he has been a walking dead man for much of his life (something he partially inherited from his mother, and impacted all his close associations throughout his long and successful, but sad life). Getting too far into the details may yield spoilers, although there is enough complexity in this plot to keep literature classes struggling for an A for a long time.

The plot is a series of amazing dialogue scenes, with interruptions for disturbing dream sequences, most from his classic 1937 Packard Eight Touring limousine. The day's accumulation of insights, linking dreams, reverie and conversation gradually lead to a turning point, a crisis precipitated by unyielding reality checks that befuddle the normally unflappable Dr. Borg.

The ground-breaking dream sequences, the first early in the film, are Hitchcock-like and terrifyingly surreal (or was the early Hitch being Bergmanesque?). The dreams set the tone of tension in a film that could have so easily been a drone, but not with Bergman in charge. Of incredible beauty is the reverie scene, where Isak relives some of his childhood while making a stop at his family's deserted summer lake house.

The continuing, front-seat of the Packard dialog scenes between Isak and his daughter-in-law, and later with the Almans (including another disturbing dream sequence) and with the "children" (hitchhiking college-age kids) are all filled with symbols and conversation pointing to Isak's living-dead existence. As the day progresses, they chip away at Borg's long-held control, coldness and distance.

It's interesting that Bergman himself, at this point in his young career, was much like Isak; agnostic, distant, self-absorbed, incapable of intimacy. Yet his conclusion to Wild Strawberries is much more hopeful than Bergman's own life. One wonders if Bergman may have ended his life with a Wild Strawberries conversion, or if he considered it at the end.

The turning point of the movie, easy to miss if you're not paying close attention, is the love-promise from the young hitchhiker Sara (Bibi Andersson). This is the sea-change moment for Isak. The incredible sweetness and innocent passion, freely offered in grace by the beautiful young girl, serves as a regeneration moment, a freely-given justification of Isak, imputing her child-like passion and righteousness into his heart. In a way it was as though his childhood sweetheart (also named Sara, also played by Bibi) came back in her youthful beauty to heal the wound of rejection she inflicted on Isak almost 70 years earlier.

The first Sara's betrayal of young Isak (seen in the summer reverie scene), choosing his brother as the better lover and husband, probably lead to Isak's walled-off life. But when this new Sara promises her Platonic, childlike love to the old Isak, he replies with solemn acceptance: "I'll remember that". This seems to break the spell of living death dealt to him by his first love, and exacerbated by so many others in his life.

Unlike Bergman, Isak closes his eyes that night with the hope of a life of meaning, of love in service, not just service as a foil for maintaining personal dignity and image. He sees that loving for loves sake is worth the risk of pain. Unlike Bergman, Isak has a hope of seeing God when his death does arrive, and has demonstrated a new life has begun. This is Isak's Today; his day of repentance, of stopping the tortuous task of hardening his heart against the call of life, yielding in submission to love, mercy and grace.

This film requires many viewings, and I have yet to tire of it. Bergman's troupe of actors were on par with the best of any generation, his cinematography is spartan and overwhelmingly effective; his location shooting in the beautiful Swedish summer is fascinatingly appealing, yielding a foreign, forgotten land yet with a "down-home" feeling that's almost Mayberry-like, if that's not too extreme a comparison.

This movie shows the dichotomy of living for self versus living in loving service to and with others. Isak thought he lived to serve but discovered that service is only of meaning to the server if it is from the heart. Service without love is only partial service to those in need, and is a self-inflicted affront to the server. This is ultimately a hopeful picture that we can all learn from if we watch with an open heart. Otherwise, we see the wasted tragedy of existential living with no greater good than one's own dead image.

Does YOUR watch have any hands?