Often recognized, along with The Seventh Seal, as Swedish maestro Ingmar Bergman’s most iconic work, and perhaps among his most accessible films, Wild Strawberries certainly ranks as a landmark cinematic achievement. Compassion, warm-heartedness and a strong sense of humanism runs through this deeply philosophical treatise on the difficult process of ageing and man’s inherent inability to completely move on from his past disillusionments. Isak Borg, an elderly medical professor on his way to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater, is a man ridden with guilt and disappointment – principally for matters relating to the heart and relationships. Thus his road journey along with his daughter-in-law Marianne turns out to be less a physical one and more a surreal, even symbolic, travel through the memories of his childhood, nightmares, fears, trampled dreams, unrequited love, emotional turmoil, regrets, his Freudian obsession with death, and his familial failures, finally achieving a small sense of peace with himself at the end of the road. The film is carried by the towering performance of celebrated Scandinavian director Victor Sjostrom as the egotistic but sympathetic Isak, with a fascinating supporting turn by Ingrid Thulin as the beautiful but emotionally troubled Marianne. The complex, disturbing dream sequences are alone worth their weight in gold.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Surreal Drama/Family Drama/Road Movie
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
