My review from ages ago:


There are moments in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries where you become so enthralled by an image that you want to dwell on it, until you realize that there are so many such moments that to do so would be to stop at practically every scene in the film. The sheer technical and visual skill that Bergman shows here is unsurprising, insofar as we ought to expect this from him, but it is dazzling, even when it is displayed in a film that, on the surface, has a rather tame premise. An old man, Professor Isak Borg (played to perfection by Victor Sjöström), is driving to Lund, where he is to be honoured. His son's wife, and three spirited young people, two men and a woman, accompany him. They also pick up an utterly depressed couple along the way, only to drop them off when they begin to fight. Interspersed with the present actions are the old man's dreams, and flashbacks to his youth.

Out of this material, Bergman crafts a wonderful and touching film about redemption. There is always a tendency to marvel at how an atheist like Bergman can be so deeply involved with religious issues, but many atheists, of course, are atheists precisely as a result of such deep involvement. I don't know enough about Bergman's views on religion to comment on his attitude towards God and religion beyond the basics. What is important, at any rate, is that this film is one in which an old man is redeemed from a miserably lonely and empty existence through contact with others. This is a deeply humanistic view of redemption, and one which is firmly grounded in reality.

The film begins with the professor telling us that he has distanced himself from others, because he has shunned human relationships. This has left him feeling empty and alone. The man we see seems nice enough, until we learn from his son's wife, who speaks frankly to him, how this self-imposed exilic state has rendered him selfish and aloof. Through flashbacks and the dream sequences, we learn enough about his life to chart his progress: when young, the girl he loved, Sara, chose his brother over him. The professor married, but the marriage was a bad one; his wife cheated on him, but it apparently did nothing for him. To her, as she states in one of the dream sequences, he was " cold as ice". The professor, therefore, is old, lonely, and has an empty existence.

How does one find oneself out of that miserable situation? There are three means through which the old man is redeemed. Firstly, the dream sequences serve to warn him of death, which, considering that the man is 78, could come any day. The dream sequences also point out to him just how detached he is from other human beings. In a fantastic scene, he is given a test, which he fails. The point is clear enough: he might be a professor and doctor, but that is nothing if he does not have an understanding of human beings, their emotions and feelings. Secondly, the flashbacks serve to remind him of a time when he was connected with others, as well as of times when he was disconnected from his wife and others. The beautiful scenes of his childhood are marvelously retold, with everyone well dressed in white, and the entire family engaging with each other. Only he is absent, standing in the dark at the threshold, an old man staring at the happy ghosts of the past mingling before him. Lastly, the three young people the professor meets, especially the wonderful Sonia, connect with him on a deeply emotional and innocent level. The girl looks like, and has the same name as, the Sonia who rejected the professor in favour of his brother when he was young. You can interpret this in any way you like, but I think it's obvious that we see here a kind of second chance. In the car, the professor asks Sonia which of the two young men she likes the most. She does not answer firmly. At the end of the film, as the three bid him goodbye, she tells the professor that she loves him the most of all. He brushes it off, but once he gets in bed, there is a great smile on his face. The smile no doubt is a reaction to the whole day's events, but I'm certain that one big reason for his happiness at the end is that Sonia finally chose him, after having rejected him so long ago.

What is the overall message of this film? As with all great films, there is no one right answer. What is certain, however, is that Bergman gives us a view of the world that is neither wholly pessimistic nor wholly optimistic, because it is so painfully real. The characters in this film have been bruised. They are broken, and seek a way out of their situation. There is no indication in the film that Bergman suggests that a solution will solve all the problems. Rather, any change for the better can only come once we engage with the past. Through an understanding of our past and our self, we can add a new sense of our self to what the past given. If we can achieve that, through whatever means necessary, then we can be redeemed. In fact, that understanding of ourselves is itself a kind of redemption. Bergman's world is one in which hope is always possible. It can happen to an unsuspecting 78 year old man, and it can happen to us. It is never too late. Every day in our life is a new chance to make something better of ourselves.

A+

Nice review. One thing though, the girl's name is Sara.

I guess my problem with it is that I found the story to be too conventional and I wasn't as emotionally impacted at the film's end as I should have been. The wonderfully surreal dreams and nightmares and flashbacks do a terrific job of outlining Isak's character and his empty life, but I felt that the story in the present didn't accurately reflect what the stories of the past implied. The elder Isak wasn't cold, wasn't harsh, and didn't deserve the loneliness which had crept over him. And, as such, I felt like his character didn't really grow over the course of the narrative, as I didn't think he was that distant to begin with. There's some redemption to be found with his son, of course, but why was that redemption required? I just thought Isak's character didn't fit within the context of the flashbacks.

I suppose I'll probably like it better once I understand Bergman more and watch it again, but for now, I'll just have to be disappointed.

Is the girl's name really Sara? Where on earth did I get Sonia from?

A beautiful film however I’m trying to wrap my head around the Isak arc. Almost everything see is his redemption or the reward of love and adoration. His happy road trip that he gets in return for willing to be appreciative and warm. What’s missing is a real sight of the icy grouch version of Isak and seeing the real transformative steps along the way. His change to his warm soft version appears to have been instant once he had the dream of him walking the lonely streets. When the film begins he’s changed enough to want to give his housekeeper a gift after their argument and when Marianne rips into him, not ripping into her back or activating his defense mechanisms. He listens to hear and faces the truth she’s saying.

Because of this the rest of the road trip feels less vital to his transformation. If he’s already become a warm and softer person, how important is events to his redemption like meeting Sara 2 and her boyfriends or learning more about Marianne? Furthermore not seeing the grouch version of him and not seeing the hard transformation, by way of lack of contrast, takes away some of the power of this new seen the light version of him. We haven’t seen him truly earn it with his actions, such as stepping out of his way to emotionally open up or help others. We haven’t seen him win the hard fought battles inside him to beat his ingrained habits and defense mechanisms. When the film starts that battle has already been won. He’s become a new man and having a happy road trip ending with people telling him they love him is his reward. Likewise, in his flashbacks the major life changing events of his first love Sara leaving him for Siegfried and his wife cheating on him, aren’t really his fault or an example of how he built his own emotional grave with selfishness and emotional fear. His biggest crime with Sara was being too nice, serious and religious. Hardly a big thing to blame him for, the fit just wasn’t there with a shallow girl who liked the bad boy,, and Siegfried’s selfishness to take his brother’s girl is what really was the worst thing of the three. Likewise his wife cheating on him can’t be pinned on him too much. Not seeing the cost of his selfishness truly fall on him in his past, takes away some of the power of him finally seeing the light in the present.

This may be a stretch but perhaps there’s a more cynical interpretation to take. Maybe what we are seeing is really the world through the rose-colored, self-protecting eyes of Isak, who gets to see himself as worth love, adoration and merely misunderstood as the grouch. Hot younger women like Marianne and Sara 2 and academics are falling over themselves for him, and Sara 1 leaving him or and his wife’s cheating, are not his fault, because for someone like Isak nothing is his fault, he was merely the victim all along. He doesn’t have to appear in his flashbacks as the icy guy, because he gets to pretend that guy doesn’t exist.

Overall there’s a lot to love in Wild Strawberries visuals, acting and theme of redemption and finding a way to love the world, although for the lack of character arc and change during the road trip for Isak, I did find it somewhat lacking in entertainment at times. I still love Woody Allen’s Another Woman more (arguably his version of Wild Strawberries moreso than Deconstructing Harry, which shares the plot the most, but not the tone and themes)