Ingmar Bergman: Wild Strawberries

Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries is one of the Swedish director's most surreal pieces of work. The film combines his traditional subjective reality style with dream sequences and flashbacks. As an old bitter doctor named Dr. Isak Borg (Victor Sjostrom) journeys across Sweden to receive an award, the viewer is given a glimpse into his hopes, fears, and regrets through Bergman's unique portrayal of subjective reality. Bergman's vision here carries a lighter, more positive take on themes such as love, loneliness, regret, and family.

Isak's brother Sigfrid picks strawberries with Sara.

As Isak makes his journey to Lund, he is faced with a series of events which cause him to reflect upon his past, and strive towards a more positive change for the remainder of his life. His most intense reflection surrounds a hitchhiker named Sara (Bibi Andersson) who Isak picks up along with two young men, both of whom seem to have a romantic interest in. Their presence, along with Isak's visit to his childhood home, sends Isak into a flashback where he recalls his cousin, also named Sara (also played by Bibi Andersson). These two Saras mirror each other, as Isak remembers how his cousin Sara rejected him in order to marry Sigfrid. While the stories of both Saras have similarities, they are different in the fact that the younger Sara is "freer than her predecessor"1. The old Sara was troubled and torn between two lovers, while the new Sara is playful and full of youthful spirit. Isak also encounters an unhappy bickering couple after a car accident who causes him to reflect on his past. Their relationship sends Isak into a fever-dream, in which he recalls watching his own wife cheat on him. In the dream, she complains about how unhappy she is with their relationship. This dream sends him deeper into loneliness and regret, two important existential themes which are reflective of Bergman's philosophical style. 

Bergman draws upon his tradition as an expressionist auteur through his use of the environment to express the mind state of characters within the film, as he did in The Seventh Seal (1957) as well. Isak's good memories are portrayed in sunny, warm environments, while his nightmares and bad memories are portrayed in bleak, dark environments such as the nightmare in the beginning, and the storm signaling his nightmare towards the end. Bergman also uses other objects of the environment to reflect Isak's mind state such as dead trees, wild strawberries, and sunflowers. Another important motif within the film is the clock without hands, which represents Isak's struggle with mortality which he battles throughout the film. 

By the end of the film, Isak has undergone a great transformation. He has learned to accept and love his son and daughter-in-law, despite their rough, cold relationship at the beginning of the film. Like many other characters in Bergman's films, he has gone through a spiritual transformation and came out better in the end. Instead of sulking on his failed relationship with Sara, he ends the film looking back on the brighter memories of his childhood with happiness. 

Bibliography

Wood, Robin Grant, Barry Keith Grant, Author Reviewer Series Editor Barry Keith. Ingmar Bergman. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012. Accessed April 18, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central.