Wild Strawberries

Director: Ingmar Bergman

22 August 2023

See

Him: Approaching the beginning of the end Dr. Eberhard Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) is due to receive an honorary degree for lifetime achievement. He’s compelled after a nightmare to try and do things differently but he doesn’t know how. He sets out on a roadtrip across Sweden and down memory lane with his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), who has given her husband Dr Evald Borg (Gunnar Björnstrand) an ultimatum about their relationship and her pregnancy.

Her: Wild Strawberries by Ingmar Bergman, 1957. Aging professor of medicine Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) is traveling from Stockholm to Lund to receive an honorary award for his outstanding achievements. The night before his departure he sees a weird dream that makes him take a long drive instead of flying. The interaction he encounters along the way prompts him to look back at his life from a perspective he never had before. 

Think

Him: Isak is described as distant by Marianne, to his son, to her, his housekeeper, and his departed wife. Stopping at the holiday house he would vacation at with his cousins, he eats wild strawberries and experiences flashbacks, a painful remembrance of things past. The  disappointment he felt at Sara’s (Bibi Anderson) rejection.The same actress also plays a hitchhiker, she’s part of a trio who help him reveal another side of himself, he comes alive with them as not only funny and warm, but present.

Her: Isak Borg is introduced from the first minute of the movie as a person who always had control over his life and seems to be comfortable with each place he finds himself. The minimal interactions, as he confesses in his diary (or letter to someone?) are by choice and his career is spotless. There’s no one around him to contradict apart from the housekeeper Agda who does it just for the sake of knowing that the professor’s word is her order. But why the strange dreams? Who is this faceless person that he meets in an empty street? Turns out the professor’s life had other aspects he disregarded that catch up and take their place. Berman is pitiless with his characters. He is as cold as professor Isak Borg himself. But somehow, this film had a therapeutic effect on me and I can’t explain why. Is it a coincidence that all of the encounters that occur remind him of his own past experiences? The professor does not seem to ask what if, he just acknowledges the past which makes him question his present. 

Feel

Him: Seeing the way Isak is with his mother or son, he feels old and cold. But there are glimpses in his search of lost time, when he again goes through a treasure chest of childhood memories. Or after another nightmare where he really does seem to change from the strict way of carrying himself. Like the dignity of the ceremony in Latin, full of ritual but of uncertain meaning. Except that the end is nigh and to prepare to depart. With the hichhikers and Marianne he still has life to live and advice to give. He’s helped people in his work as a doctor, including Max Von Syndow as a service station attendant who reveals he’s going to name his son after him. But Isak is finally able to resolve his past feelings of being let down by those he was closest to, because they can hurt you. He should’ve told his Sara how he felt about her. Fought his sleazy cousin. Or confronted his wife for cheating on him. Then maybe his son Evald wouldn’t have been going down the same path. A selfless doctor but a spineless man with no lust for life. Perhaps his and Marianne’s child will do things differently. 

Her: As I mentioned before, the more I watch Bergman, the more I want to. It’s in a way refreshing to see that sometimes there’s no happy ending, nor even a hope for one. We only get one chance to live our lives and mistakes are inevitable and irreversible… to some extent. Because some can be reconciled, though normally there is not an easy way out. Bergman does not dramatise anything because life itself has enough drama. And sometimes (most of the time) it’s way harder to watch than any bloody action. Bergman is a mature director and I’m glad I have finally lived enough to start understanding him.