‘When your were little you believed in Santa Claus, now you believe in God…’
Ingmar Bergman is a master of the craft. The Swedish maestro is responsible for some of the most acclaimed cinema ever created. And sure, there aren’t any explosions or Transformers knocking about in any of them, but if you want quiet meditations on life, death and what it is to be human, then Bergman is your man. Wild Strawberries is not quite as esoteric at Persona, but also not as universally appealing as The Seventh Seal. It is a fable in the mould of A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life, in which a cantankerous old man is forced to reflect on his life. This being Bergman, he is forced to reflect on his life in a way that is often confusing, sometimes tedious, but occasionally thrilling. Bergman in microcosm. Absolutely CLASSIC Bergman.
Dr. Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) is a cold and distant man. He’s cold and distant to his similarly bad tempered housekeeper Agda (Jullan Kindahl). He’s cold and bad tempered to his cousin Sara (Bibi Andersson). And perhaps worst of all, Dr. Isak Borg is cold and bad tempered to himself, dear reader, if you can imagine such a thing. Over the course of Wild Strawberries, Borg goes on a spiritual and literal journey, through both his past and through various fields and dirt roads, to reach a conclusion that will change the way he perceives everything up until this point.
I will begin by saying that Sjöström is great here, somehow being both detestable and avuncular from moment to moment. Perhaps it’s something to do with the Hitler moustache. The rest of the cast are a little forgettable but Dr. Borg shines bright enough for all of them. Bergman’s script is as intoxicatingly strange and unique as always, and his innovative cinematography is not as intrusive here as in some of his other works. That being said, Wild Strawberries does kind of meander along at a leisurely pace too often. It feels like we are building towards something here, but it’s ever quite clear what that denouement is supposed to be.
Bergman is a master, and there are undoubtedly layers of meaning here that I missed, but Wild Strawberries perhaps doesn’t deserve the level of acclaim that it currently enjoys.