Review of Wild Strawberries (2012) by Patryk C — 24 Jul 2012

"may contain spoiler".

It looks like Wild Strawberries implies the nostalgia and the translation has lost the true meaning. This is because Wild Strawberries are the memory of the short nice warm summer in the normally cold Sweden. In this movie, Bergman digs into the layers of the personality of the protagonist once more, this time with everything being around the concept of love (he later made "through a glass darkly" where he talks about faith and love. However, love is not the main theme there).

There are to time directions in the movie as the movie goes on: 1- in the forward direction, the memories of the protagonist, Dr. Isak Borg, from his childhood to his more mature state of being. He deals with his memories in the face of death. As it is captured in a scene from his car, everything is forward, youth, middle ages, and current state, from back to the front seat of the car. He is in a state composed of dreams (his dreams) and intellectualism (discussions with his daughter in law) and he can clearly understand his remorse (unsuccessful loveless marriage in the shadow of his conceitedness; his life which is wasted on his passion with abstract science, something that he cannot remember anything of it in a surreal scene of his ridiculing examination in an exam room, something that cannot help him; his refrain from approaching Sarah (the way he sees the event. however the event might have happened in another way: Sarah has chosen Victor-Isak's brother- over him, which can be supported by hitchhiker Sarah's argument over her decision between the two other hitchhikers); being betrayed by his wife; not staying at the small town of the gas station, where his science would not remain abstract, where the people would admire him and his work; and finally his relationship with his mother) and remembers his happy moments of life (Sarah and his parents).

However, 2 - as the hand-less clock in his dream depicts, time does not have a neither meaning nor direction here. He lives concurrent with the events from the past (memories) in different time directions. In fact, time and time direction are both undefined. The second direction is how Isak captures himself: from an old age university professor at the beginning of the movie towards his childhood at the end of the movie when he encounters his parents at a scenery lake, next to his childhood house, from his outer-most level of personality towards the inner-most level. There is only one character who represents Isak at all ages, but the sensuality and dreams define him.

Now let's see what makes Isak happy and calm out of this turbulent journey and what does he remember right before death. The answer is love, and looks like Bergman has a special credit for the love of Isak for his parents (something that he does not utter but it is sunk at the deepest level of his mind). This claim might be disputed based on Bergman's self relationship with his parents, specifically his father.

The Wild Strawberries has inspired the movie, "eternity and a day" directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos. Despite being strong, the latter falls short with respect to the Wild Strawberries.