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Sweden · 1957
1h 31m
Director Ingmar Bergman
Starring Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand
Genre Drama
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Retired doctor Isak Borg sets out on a long car ride from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Traveling with his daughter-in-law, who hates him and plans to leave Isak's son, creates a tenuous environment. As Isak experiences nightmares, daydreams, hitchhikers, and old age, he starts to reevaluate his life.
For those who think legendary cine-Swede Ingmar Bergman's films are aloof and coldly austere, this warm, welcoming 1957 road movie of aged reflection - the inspiration for Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry - might come as a surprise.
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
This one is so thoroughly mystifying that we wonder whether Mr. Bergman himself knew what he was trying to say.
Initially, Wild Strawberries appears to be an almost pointedly unsubtle coming-of-age story that’s been goosed with dime-store surrealism and male handwringing masked as intellectual engagement with humankind. But the bluntness is a misdirection that underlines the depth of Bergman’s empathy with his hero as well as his dedication to his real subject, which is the process of mentally freeing oneself from an insidiously limiting self-mythology.
There's a lot of allegorical baggage on board, but the film's virtues lie in its relative simplicity.
The bitter has not yet overpowered the sweet in this early film from writer-director Ingmar Bergman.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
A wonderfully composed movie in which Ingmar Bergman is able to vary the tone from melancholy to gaiety in the most deeply satisfying way
Entertainment Weekly by Ty Burr
A film that goes where many others have gone (yes, this is Scrooge for Ph.D.s) but with a subtlety few have dreamed of?
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Please login to add films to your watchlist.
A film director suffers creative block as he prepares his next movie and navigates the relationships of his life.
A singular crime from four different perspectives.
Two separate people. Will they combine into one?
A magical journey to a place where the past and present meet
In the wake of their father's death, siblings Fanny and Alexander must adjust to their new life and new home.
Four women dressed in white... in a mansion painted red... haunted by whispers and cries.
A schizophrenic woman and her family visit a remote island, but she herself is visited by delusions…
When his daughter is raped and murdered in the woods, a father plots his revenge.
The poor man's "La Dolce Vita."
Time can't heal all wounds.
When their island is invaded, a married couple must adapt to life under war and foreign occupation.
The tortured heart behind the cultivated image.
From the very pages of life itself!
A young woman from the Italian countryside moves to Rome hoping to become a star, but discovers the business’s dark side instead.
Life at home changes when a housewife from a middle-class, conservative family in Calcutta gets a job as a salesperson.
Beautiful and inspiring, Wild Strawberries is one of Bergman's best. Isak reflects on his future, past, and present throughout the film, confronting his fears and mistakes. Bergman understands how to depict the human condition through the conscious and subconscious experiences' of Isak, ultimately grounding the film in its humanity.