Post by StevePulaski on Aug 7, 2012 13:36:56 GMT -5
Victor Sjöström in Wild Strawberries.
Rating: ★★★★
Despite the amount of weight Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries brings to the table, there's an incredible amount of ease and earnestness in its story, blooming from its leads and the overall subject matter that it so brilliantly handles. Unlike his previous effort, The Seventh Seal, made the same year as this, Bergman unfolds more of a Charles Dickens-esque story, more centered on the modern world rather than the Middle Ages, and a one about how a man can see his childhood memories with piercing clarity, yet can not fathom or even begin to be piece together his present life.
The man is Professor Isak Borg, played by the marvelous director Victor Sjöström. Isak is the bossy and stubborn professor of bacteriology, who resides in a small home with just a house maid for company. He must make the lengthy trip from Stockholm to Lund to receive an honorary degree after graduating from Lund University fifty years ago. Ingrid Thulin is Marianne, his pregnant daughter-in-law who is planning to divorce her husband once the baby is born. She views her father-in-law much like the rest of the world; snotty, ungrateful, and unimportant.
It is during this long car trip that Isak begins to see through to his inner-self. This newfound exercise is assisted by three different groups of people he encounters. One is the relationship with his close family, which is closed-off to his mother, daughter-in-law, and son. Another is with people he encounters while on the road, like a bickering married couple, who relationship is apparently physically and verbally abusive, along with a group of young hikers. And the final relationship is with the man's own psyche, which writer/director Bergman does not hesitate to plunge deeply into.
We see Isak's psyche through metaphoric and sometimes disturbing dream sequences, one of which takes place right at the beginning of the film. The dream involves Isak walking down an empty road, disillusioned and confused. The clocks do not have hands on them, and everything appears washed-out and unusually bright. We see a horse-drawn carriage collide into a pole, releasing one of its wooden wheels. The horse scurry off frightened when a casket falls off the carriage, opening slightly, revealing its contents to be those of Isak's. The "body" attempts to pull him in right before Isak can snap back into reality. That scene plays like a short film in itself and is surreal and poignant, offering more than words could ever.
Wild Strawberries is a treat everyone should indulge in. It provided me with one of the most thought-provoking characters I've ever seen - someone who can connect and get on the good side of those he just meets, but truly takes advantage of and detaches himself from those close to him - and gave me one of the rawest and interesting dramas I have yet to see.
Starring: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Gunnar Björnstrand. Directed by: Ingmar Bergman.