318. Smultronstallet (Wild Strawberries) (1957)

Directed By Ingmar Bergman

Synopsis

An old professor decides to drive from Stockholm to Lund in order to receive his jubilee degree. On the way he shares his car with a number of characters which make him put his life in perspective and finally come to terms with his past.

Review

As my wife said: "This is how you make a film with old people". This is true, she was particularly comparing this with Umberto D, the Italian neo-realist film which is also more than a little exploitative. Bergman has a much softer touch, so he can make emotional films without pulling on easy sentiment.

Bergman was famously a fan of Kurosawa and we can see the influence of life-affirming films like Ikiru in this film. The emotional trip of the old professor here is comparable to that of the main character in Ikiru, old people learn to turn their life around, to be better, to come to terms with their life before the end.

Bergman has the talent of including pretty complex dialogue in a film without making it sound completely out of place. He does it here, smartly underpinning the inner trip of his characters with sound philosophical thought. To this is a road-trip film, both a literal road-trip and an interior travel, the film is full of parallels between the present in the past, impressive dream-sequences and surreal recollections and they all contribute to the building blocks of the professor's life and personality. A beautiful, sad and life-affirming film.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The film won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.

The film is included on the Vatican Best Films List, recommended for its portrayal of a man's "interior journey from pangs of regret and anxiety to a refreshing sense of peace and reconciliation".

The film was the inspiration for Deconstructing Harry, written and directed by Woody Allen, in which a man (Allen) goes on a road trip to his former university to receive an honorary degree and on the way meets an assortment of characters and re-evaluates his life.

The film is online, here's part 1: