Wild Strawberries [Smultronstället] ***** (1957, Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin) – Classic Movie Review 2933

Swedish writer-director Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 world cinema classic traces the spiritual journey of an aged, irascible professor (Victor Sjöström) uncovering his past and present emotional frailties while on a road trip from his home in Stockholm to Lund to accept a university honorary degree.

The widowed 78- year-old former medical doctor Dr Isak Borg relives moments from his youth during his travels and experiences a rebirth through his encounter with three young students he meets on the way. His daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) is along with him for the ride.

This Bergman masterpiece is beautifully paced and plotted, compassionate and deeply moving. Sjöström, Swedish cinema’s best-known film-making pioneer, who died aged 81 three years after the film’s release, gives an unforgettable central performance.

It is hauntingly written and performed, and hauntingly photographed too by cinematographers Gunnar Fischer and Bjorn Thermenius. It also stars Bergman regular collaborators Gunnar Björnstrand and Bibi Andersson.

Bergman puts one of his own recurring nightmares – the coffin falling from the hearse – into this rich tapestry of memories and fears.

Also in the cast are Naima Wifstrand, Jullan Kindahl, Folke Sundqvist, Björn Bjelvenstam, Gunnel Broström, Gertrude Fridh, Ake Fridell, Sif Rund, Max von Sydow and Gunnar Sjöberg.

Bergman wrote the film with Sjöström in mind but he was in poor health and several scenes had to be shot indoors. Gunnar Fischer said: ‘We had to make some very bad back projection in the car because we never knew if Victor would come back alive the next day.’ Nevertheless, Bergman kept his promise that Sjöström would get home and have his whisky at 5 pm every day, and all was well. But it proved his final film.

Bergman came up with the idea for the film while driving by his grandmother’s old house in Uppsala. He wondered how it would be if he could open the door and inside it was just as it had been during his childhood. ‘So it struck me. What if you could make a film about this? That you just walk up in a realistic way and open a door. And then you walk into your childhood. And then you open another door and come back to reality. And then you make a turn around a street corner and arrive in some other period of your existence. And everything goes on, lives.’

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2933

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com