An Ingmar Bergman masterpiece...

Wild Strawberries (also known by its foreign title Smultronstället) is a surreal, expressionistic creation from renowned Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. During 1957, Bergman directed two of his most celebrated masterpieces: The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Both of these exquisite films sincerely delve into themes of life and death. Where The Seventh Seal dealt with the futility of absconding death, Wild Strawberries is a hauntingly beautiful and entrancing meditation on our morality, relationships, faith, and the realisation of death's inevitability. The film is a classic introspective production and a triumph in world cinema. In a sense it's fundamentally a cerebral road movie. Bergman first evoked this concept while standing at the door of his grandmother's house and wondering whether he'd re-enter his childhood by stepping inside. He pervades this concept with thought-provoking messages and surrealistic dream sequences which Bergman was probably most recognised for. Not long into Wild Strawberries are we presented with a nightmarish dream sequence. But this celebrated sequence is much more than a slice of expressionist symbolism: it establishes the tactic of anticipating future events and reveals that the central protagonist is a vulnerable figure who is worthy of our compassion despite all his ego, petulance and bigoted aloofness.

Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries is a bittersweet tale of an elderly college professor's journey from emotional seclusion to salvation and, ultimately, personal regeneration. Professor Isak Borg (Sjöström) is a disillusioned aged physician whose self-indulgent cynicism has left him isolated. As he reaches a tender old age, he begins reflecting on his life and starts perceiving his mortality. Isak is bestowed with an honorary University degree in recognition for 50 years of medical practise, and must travel to Lund to receive it. He travels to Lund by car with daughter-in-law Marianne (Thulin). During this journey Isak is strained to come to terms with his imminent death as he reflects on his childhood memories and life regrets. For the professor, the road trip develops into an otherworldly journey where the present is distorted by shadows from his past, and where the boundary separating dreams and reality has been erased. This is primarily exemplified when the professor wakes from a dream of an idyllic summer past with adored cousin Sara (Andersson) to meet her virtual reincarnation in the form of Sara the hitcher (also played by Andersson) whose two companions remind Isak of himself and his brother who won Sara's heart. Above all, Isak's mind is infested with memories, premonitions, reveries, and nightmares which offer illumination on his cold and empty life which lacks any significant meaning or value.

Gunnar Fischer's stylish, mesmeric black & white photography perfectly captures the wonderful locales and the images that imbue Bergman's wildly inventive imagination. Writer/director Bergman scripted the film while in hospital for two months whilst suffering from gastric ulcers. Bergman's confrontational views on human existence permeate his screenplay. In spite of suffering in a hospital bed during the film's conception, Wild Strawberries emerges as the director's most elegiac and humane production. Throughout the course of flashbacks and interactions with characters (both imaginary and real), Bergman builds a compassionate and poignant portrait of a man coming to terms with sorrows and compunctions of an emotionally constrained existence.
The cinematography creates a moody and atmospheric setting as the film glides from scenes of expressionistic distress to pastoral idyll. This is especially effective during the dream sequence encompassing faceless people and clocks sans hands as Isak moves through haunting, empty streets and eventually encounters a coffin containing his own corpse. This scene is both compelling and troubling. It's a sequence which speaks to our very soul, circumventing all senses and firmly grabbing hold of our deepest fears.

The highlight of Wild Strawberries is the miraculously sensitive performance courtesy of Victor Sjöström. This film marked Sjöström's final screen performance as he died a few years after filming wrapped. The actor portrays Professor Isak Borg as a cantankerous and irascible old man who has proved successful in his professional life, but has failed to connect with family and friends on a personal level. Many close-ups reveal Sjostrom's face expressing his character's inner conflicts, making his performance one of the most memorable in cinematic history. Bergman's allegorical road movie slips between present and past, dream and reality to explore the external and internal worlds the aging central character played by Sjöström. Sjöström's performance of an elderly man who's outwardly content yet internally burdened with disabling scars is perfect...never striking an incorrect note. He's surrounded by a remarkable supporting cast.

Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin, Wild Strawberries is one of the truly outstanding works of post-war European cinema. It may creak in places and it might make an audience sleepy, but its evocation of the nostalgia, trepidation and repentance of old age remains unsurpassed. Gunnar Fischer's luminous lens compliments Bergman's terrific screenplay. In its revelation of human character, desire and chagrin, Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries is a potent and masterful film that cannot be missed.

8.7/10