Wild Strawberries [1957] [DVD]

Made in 1957, Wild Strawberries finds the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman at the height of his powers. It's a road movie, in effect: an aged medical professor (Victor Sjöström)--lonely, disillusioned and haunted by dreams of death--travels across country to receive an honorary degree. But as with all good road movies, the outer journey parallels an inner one. Incidents along the road conjure up memories, and Professor Borg finds himself forced to confront the failures and lost opportunities of his life. Gentle and elegiac, Bergman's film is a masterpiece of compassion and reconciliation, and also a tribute to his predecessor Sjöström, the greatest Swedish director of the silent era. The 78-year-old film maker gives an austere, moving performance, and Bergman treats his lined features like a landscape of yearning and regret. Sjöström is ably supported by other members of Bergman's regular repertory company of the period, particularly Bibi Andersson, heartbreakingly appealing, as the lost love of Borg's youth. --Philip Kemp

Wild Strawberries, Ingmar Bergman's 1957 follow-up to the The Seventh Seal, is a "journey" movie. Victor Sjostrom plays Isak Borg, an elderly retired professor of medicine, setting out by car to the University of Lund to receive a Jubilee doctorate degree. With him on the journey is his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin). Along the way, they pick up a bickering couple and three hitchhikers, including effervescent sprite Sara (Bibi Andersson). Borg also experiences some troubling and beautifully realised dream sequences, as well as flashbacks evoked by a visit to the country house of his youth. Through these, we learn of Borg's awareness of his imminent demise and his underlying regret that his personal relationships have always been distant and reserved, especially with his wife and son.

With his magnificently aged and infinitely expressive emotional range borne of his years as a silent movie actor, Sjostrom superbly conveys a dawning sense of remorse and self-realisation. However, the performance is almost too good. The central accusation of the film--that the doctor is "utterly cold"--hardly squares with what we see of him on screen. We just have to take Bergman's word for the doctor's past aloofness. Wild Strawberries is so overpoweringly rich and ruminative a film, however, that what should be a major flaw is reduced to a barely visible crack.

On the DVD: the text-only extras are notes from Bergman's own memoir, in which he discusses his own estrangement from his parents (the autobiographical inspiration for Wild Strawberries) while critic Geoff Andrews' additional comments are helpful. He hails the film as "one of the first great road movies".--David Stubbs

DVD Special Features:

Star and director Filmographies
Scene Selection
Geoff Andrew Film notes
Extract from 'Bergman's book 'Images-My life in Film'
The Bergman Collection Trailer

Language: Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English
Video Aspect Ratio: Original Academy Ratio

Winner of the Grand Prix Award for the Best Film at the 1958 Berlin Film Festival. Professor Isak Borg (Victor Sjostrom) travels with his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) to receive an honorary doctorate for his lifelong contribution to medicine. Soon his journey becomes one of introspection, as the people he meets - from a hitch-hiking girl to a quarrelling married couple - remind him of past relationships and cause him to contemplate his own failings. Victor Sjoctrom, a celebrated film director in his own right, best known for his silent work including the Hollywood masterpiece The Wind, gives a remarkably moving performance as the aged academic. Bergman's smile and tears on a summer's day make for his most overtly symbolic work, shifting skillfully between the past and the present, dream and reality. Filled with richly observed characters and a real feeling for the joys of nature and youth, Wild Strawberries is one of Bergman's warmest and finest films.

United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 0 DVD: LANGUAGES: Swedish ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Filmographies, Interactive Menu, Production Notes, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: Professor of medicine Isak Borg travels to Lund University in order to receive his anniversary title. Along the road he meets strangers and relatives, and in his dreams he is confronted with his own past as well as fear of insufficiency. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: BAFTA Awards, Berlin International Film Festival, Golden Globes, Oscar Academy Awards, Venice Film Festival, ...Wild Strawberries ( Smultronstället )