PTAbro's World Tour Stop 9: Sweden

Of the few Bergman films I've had a chance to enjoy, Wild Strawberries is undoubtedly the most optimistic yet (okay, so maybe Persona and Scenes from a Marriage are bad comparisons), even if it does utilize troubling, disturbing, and depressing methods to get there. It is yet another film about a man's tour of his life near the end of it, and though his own past comes up lacking, there is hope for a new generation to break the curse he has both been saddled with and helped spread. He himself, though confronted with moments of profound regret and unhappiness from his past, realizes that all his misfortune and mistakes made do not need…

This is my first Bergman film. I went in with a mind expecting to see a masterpiece, and I came out expecting nothing less from him. It’s the film that truly made me understand why I love film so much. It’s a universal language in the world. Through moving pictures, audiences all over the world can view a piece of art in a way that we cannot through a painting, drawing, poem, or book. It incorporates our sense of sight and hearing, where other art forms fall short in. It can be pure entertainment or provide a strong message as Wild Strawberries does.

I could go on to list what was great about this film, but it’d be easier to…

Wild Strawberries is my first Ingmar Bergman film, and certainly not my last! Normally this kind of story rubs me the wrong way and I find little to connect to, but this one won me over pretty quickly. Regret is my favorite bad thing and Wild Strawberries is soaked in it. It's perfectly shot, looks absolutely stunning in black and white, and has this light, ethereal atmosphere that makes thinking about the film akin to remembering a hazy dream. That's probably because this film is about an old man remembering his past and I'm thinking too hard.

I'm having trouble remembering if I've seen other films that deal with romantic relationship issues in this rather detached manner. That was the…

There is a misconception that an existentialist work of art is necessarily gloomy. It is true that one doesn't necessarily evaluate one's existence during happy times, but sometimes soul-searching can result in acceptance and contentment. This is what Ingmar Bergman achieves with Wild Strawberries, a poignant, warm and wonderfully funny account of an elderly doctor's (Bergman's idol, Viktor Sjostrom) trip to his home town to receive a jubilee doctorate celebrating half a century in his profession.

Essentially a road movie, Isak Borg (Sjostrom) is accompanied by his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) and along the way they pick up a trio of young hitchhikers, including Sara (a bewitching Bibi Andersson), the spitting image of Borg's lost love who married his brother.…

One friend said, "Every man has his own calling".
I said, "You're an atheist, but how can you believe in such equality, that everybody has something that he is good at?"
He replied, "From my experience".

Two young men in this film like to argue about whether God exists or not, insulting each other and even physically fighting. The old man sits in his car and watches, while listening to his daughter-in-law. Whether his "experience" is valid or not, he has experience. He can look back to his own childhood with fresh eyes and dream vividly while napping. His dreams are interconnected with past, present, and future, where the three are one.

The daughter-in-law tells the old man what happened…

One friend said, "Every man has his own calling".
I said, "You're an atheist, but how can you believe in such equality, that everybody has something that he is good at?"
He replied, "From my experience".

Two young men in this film like to argue about whether God exists or not, insulting each other and even physically fighting. The old man sits in his car and watches, while listening to his daughter-in-law. Whether his "experience" is valid or not, he has experience. He can look back to his own childhood with fresh eyes and dream vividly while napping. His dreams are interconnected with past, present, and future, where the three are one.

The daughter-in-law tells the old man what happened…

PTAbro's World Tour Stop 9: Sweden

Of the few Bergman films I've had a chance to enjoy, Wild Strawberries is undoubtedly the most optimistic yet (okay, so maybe Persona and Scenes from a Marriage are bad comparisons), even if it does utilize troubling, disturbing, and depressing methods to get there. It is yet another film about a man's tour of his life near the end of it, and though his own past comes up lacking, there is hope for a new generation to break the curse he has both been saddled with and helped spread. He himself, though confronted with moments of profound regret and unhappiness from his past, realizes that all his misfortune and mistakes made do not need…

It's not that this film was overly bad, Victor Sjostrom in the lead was actually quite good, it was more that it just became boring after the weird surreal dream sequence. Borg would think back on his childhood memories to his mother nagging at the dinner table and my god, that woman would not stop bitching. Why would you want to remember that of all things? This and the biggest annoyance of the film being every young person, period. He meets a young girl traveling with two guys after his first reminiscence and she just kind of invites herself and companions for a lift in his car. She then proceeds to be annoying as hell and he eats it up.…

If you think I didn't weep watching this utter masterpiece, think again. Possibly Ingmar Bergman's most heartwarming, endearing, and charming work in his already masterful career. Putting aside the bleakness and harrowing narrative that often characterizes his films, in Wild Strawberries he decides to tell a simpler, lighter story, but not for that less outstanding. Also, a great example of how a road movie should be; starting easy, for say it in some way, and developing into something more relevant, hard, thought-provoking, but through the acid point of view from Bergman, most of it comes as a sort of black comedy. Hint: That scene of Sara's lovers fighting over if God exists or not.
The legend says Bergman wrote the…