This Bergman film is an antithesis to the typical narration device used by most
classical Hollywood films. Classical film structure shapes the drama by the use
of direct cause and effect within the plot often emphasising an explicit
deadline e.g boy meets girl, boy wants girl, boy has until friday afternoon to
win her love with a couple of added complications. Thus in the classical film,
the emphasis is on the plot and not so much the character. Bergman's "Wild
Strawberries" focuses the interest on the character development emphasising the
importance of psychological causation. This is an important point in regards to
the narration technique of the film which relies on using coincidence and dream
sequences to express the main characters' questioning of self and
purposes.
''Wild Strawberries" has been described as the equivalent to
Shakespeares' "King Lear" in regards to its exploration of an old man getting to
grips with his failures, unethical deeds and the inevitability of the aging
process, although there are no scenarios of naked old men dancing on hilltops in
the rain.
The mature man in question is Professor Isak Borg (Victor
Sjostrom) who is forced to confront his past and self during a car journey to
Lund where he is ironically to collect an academic honour for all his good work.
Accompanied by his daughter in law, Marianne, who is estranged from his son,
Isak undergoes a sort of semi-self psychoanalysis which is prompted along by
Marianne who points out that Isak's son is his reflection in regards to his cold
nature and egoism. The dream sequences of flashbacks triggered by the present
external reality throws Professor Borg into a confrontation with significant and
painful memories and his own trial by sub-conscience. The key trigger of the
significant past events is a young hitch-hiking, female student who Borg and
Marianne pick up. The student Sarah is a reincarnation of Borg's cousin Sara.
Sarah's two male companions signify the past interlocking of Borg, Sara and his
brother Sigfrid who Borg loses Sara too.
Despite the sombre tone and dark
awakening of self truth, the film does have a sense of humour and
lightheartedness embodied by the three hitch-hiking youths and Borg's bossy
housekeeper with whom he has a rather endearing relationship.The symbolic wild
strawberries also counter-balance the decay and near-death feel of the film.
This fruit symbolizes for the Swedish rejuvanation and rebirth. The fruit in
this film is a reminder to Borg of his failed relationship with his cousin Sara
and is his key to self enlightenment. A foil character to the youthful
ebullience of the students and strawberries is Borg's mother who is 96 years old
and who Marianne describes as "ice cold, in some ways more frightening than
death itself". This is a very poignant statement as a centrifocal theme of the
film is the "need for warmth and humanity", without which arguably it is better
to be dead than to be a living icicle.
The theme of death, time and age
is expressed in Borg's first dream which occurs before his journey to Lund.
Apart from handless clocks (figure it out for yourself), the most significant
event in this dream is a coffin falling from a driverless hearse within which a
hand emerges and grasps the professor-the corpse turns out to be Borg's own
corpse. Apparently this confrontation with ones' own inevitable "kicking the
bucket" or death as the occurrence is commonly known, is a dream that Bergman
claimed he frequently experienced.
However, despite the horror of self
realisation and the temperature of some characters ranging from lukewarm to
freezing cold (watch out for hollywood couples in beetle cars), the film
contains an amazing capacity for compassionate understanding and it does have a
slightly happy ending for you Hollywood sentimentalists out there as Marianne
and Isak decide that they actually like each other.
From www.st-andrews.ac.uk
<
BACK