Wild Strawberries (1957)

After living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence.

Director:

Ingmar Bergman

Writer:

Ingmar Bergman

Stars:

Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin

Top Rated Movies #170 | Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 16 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Victor Sjöström	...	Dr. Eberhard Isak Borg
Bibi Andersson	...	Sara / Hitchhiker
Ingrid Thulin	...	Marianne Borg
Gunnar Björnstrand	...	Dr. Evald Borg
Jullan Kindahl	...	Agda
Folke Sundquist	...	Anders
Björn Bjelfvenstam	...	Viktor (as Björn Bjelvenstam)
Naima Wifstrand	...	Mrs. Borg - Isak's Mother
Gunnel Broström	...	Berit Alman
Gertrud Fridh	...	Karin Borg - Isak's wife
Sif Ruud	...	Aunt Olga
Gunnar Sjöberg	...	Sten Alman / The Examiner
Max von Sydow	...	Henrik Åkerman
Åke Fridell	...	Karin's lover
Yngve Nordwall	...	Uncle Aron

Storyline

With the exception of his elderly housekeeper Miss Agda who he treats almost like a surrogate platonic wife, widowed seventy-eight year old Dr. Isak Borg, a former medical doctor and professor, has retreated from any human contact, partly his own want but partly the decision of others who do not want to spend time with him because of his cold demeanor. He is traveling from his home in Stockholm to Lund to accept an honorary degree. Instead of flying as was the original plan, he decides to take the day long drive instead. Along for the ride is his daughter-in-law Marianne, who had been staying with him for the month but has now decided to go home. The many stops and encounters along the way make him reminisce about various parts of his life. Those stops which make him reminisce directly are at his childhood summer home, at the home of his equally emotionally cold mother, and at a gas station where the attendants praise him as a man for his work. But the lives of other people they ...

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Plot Keywords:

professor | nostalgia | dream | strawberry | aging | 

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Taglines:

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." Shakespeare - The Tempest

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Sweden

Language:

Swedish Latin

Release Date:

22 June 1959 (USA)

Also Known As:

Wild Strawberries

Filming Locations:

Lund Cathedral, Lund, Skåne län, Sweden

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$14,524

Company Credits

Production Co:

Svensk Filmindustri (SF)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Final screen appearance of Victor Sjöström.

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Goofs

It has been included as a continuity error that Marianne says she is going to go swimming at the old house, but when she returns her hair does not appear to be wet. This is not a continuity error, because when the film was shot in the late 1950s, and for at least a decade afterwards, at least in the Nordic countries women gathered their hair up and covered it with a special swimming cap to protect their hair from becoming wet. Some women who had grown up during those times used swimming caps as late as the 1980s, because they had grown up with the custom, and a swimming cap was to them just as integral part of swimming attire as a swimming suit.

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Quotes

The Examiner: [In Professor Borg's dream] Please read this text.
Professor Isak Borg: Inke tan magrov stak farsin los kret fajne kaserte mjotron presete.
The Examiner: What does it mean?
Professor Isak Borg: I don't know.
The Examiner: Really?
Professor Isak Borg: I'm a doctor, not a linguist.
The Examiner: What you see on the blackboard is a doctor's first duty. Don't you know what that is?
Professor Isak Borg: Let me think.
The Examiner: Take your time.
Professor Isak Borg: A doctor's first duty - A doctor's - I've forgotten.
[...]

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Connections

Referenced in Century of Cinema: A Personal History of British Cinema by Stephen Frears (1995)

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Soundtracks

Fugue nº8 in E-flat minor
(uncredited)
Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach

User Reviews

When film was an art form

In this symbolic tale of an old man's journey from emotional isolation to a kind of personal renaissance, Ingmar Bergman explores in part his own past, and in doing so rewards us all with a tale of redemption and love.

Victor Sjostrom, then 80 years old, stars as Professor Isak Borg whose self-indulgent cynicism has left him isolated from others. Sjostrom, whose work goes back to the very beginning of the Swedish cinema in the silent film era, both as an actor and as a director, gives a brilliant and compelling performance. All the action of the film takes place in a single day with flashbacks and dream sequences to Borg's past as Borg wakes and goes on a journey to receive a "Jubilee Doctor" degree from the University of Lund. Bergman wrote that the idea for the film came upon him when he asked the question, "What if I could suddenly walk into my childhood?" He then imagined a film "about suddenly opening a door, emerging in reality, then turning a corner and entering another period of one's existence, and all the time the past is going on, alive."

Bibi Andersson plays both the Sara from Borg's childhood, the cousin he was to marry, and the hitchhiker Sara who with her two companions befriends him with warmth and affection. The key scene is when the ancient Borg in dreamscape comes upon the Sara of his childhood out gathering wild strawberries. Borg looks on (unnoticed of course) as his brother, the young Sigfrid, ravishes her with a kiss which she returns passionately; and, as the wild strawberries fall from her bowl onto her apron, staining it red, Borg experiences the pain of infidelity and heartbreak once again. Note that in English we speak of losing one's "cherry"; here the strawberries symbolize emotionally much the same thing for Sara. Later on in the film as the redemption comes, the present day Sara calls out to Borg that it is he that she really loves, always and forever. Borg waves her away from the balcony, yet we are greatly moved by her love, and we know how touched he is.

The two young men accompanying Sara can be seen as reincarnations of the serious and careful Isak Borg and the more carefree and daring Sigfrid. It is as though his life has returned to him as a theater in which the characters resemble those of his past; yet we are not clear in realizing whether the resemblance properly belongs in the old man's mind or is a synchronicity of time returned.

Memorable is Ingrid Thulin who plays Mariana, the wife of Borg's son who accompanies him on the auto trip to Lund. She begins with frank bitterness toward the old man but ends with love for him; and again we are emotionally moved at the transformation. What Bergman does so very well in this film is to make us experience forgiveness and the transformation of the human spirit from the negative emotions of jealousy and a cold indifference that is close to hate, to the redemption that comes with love and a renewal of the human spirit. In quiet agreement with this, but with the edge of realism fully intact, is the scene near the end when Borg asks his long time housekeeper and cook if they might not call one another by their first names. She responses that even at her age, a woman has her reputation to consider. Such a gentle comeuppance meshes well with, and serves as a foil for, all that has gone on before on this magical day in an old man's life.

See this for Bergman who was just then realizing his genius (The Seventh Seal was produced immediately before this film) and for Sjostrom who had the rare opportunity to return to film as an actor in a leading role many decades past him prime, and made the most of it with a flawless performance, his last major performance as he was to die three years later.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)