Product Details

• Actors: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, Jullan Kindahl
• Directors: Ingmar Bergman
• Writers: Ingmar Bergman
• Producers: Allan Ekelund
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: Latin, Swedish
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Homevision
• VHS Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Run Time: 91 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302783356
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,721 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

An elderly college professor sets out in his car to receive an honorary degree--and takes a trip instead through his own past and subconscious--in this bittersweet but ultimately tender and understanding 1957 film by Swedish master Ingmar Bergman. Casting Swedish star Victor Sjöström in the lead, Bergman, then at the height of his powers as an international filmmaker, uses flashbacks and bright, lyrical storytelling to capture the full arc of one man's life: the successes that seem fleeting, the disappointments that linger in the memory, the regrets that never seem to let go. In some ways, it can be seen as a forerunner of Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, except that Bergman's sense of irony is always more profound. --Marshall Fine

Product Description

One of the acknowledged classics of the cinema, Wild Strawberries confronts eternal questions of loneliness, aging, and mortality with a warmth and humanity not often found in Bergman's austere world. This visually rich and dramatic film follows an aged doctor's journey through a compelling landscape of dream and memory as he travels to receive an honorary degree. Haunting flashbacks and incidents along the way force him to confront his life and its failings. Victor Sjostrom gives a superb, affecting performance as the doctor. Bergman's dramatic use of light and dark to reveal the human mind and soul ranks Wild Strawberries among the world's greatest cinematic achievements.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When film was an art form, June 21, 2004

By 

Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wild Strawberries (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

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 his prime, and made the most of it with a flawless performance, his last major performance as he was to die three years later.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great Criterion DVD, February 12, 2002

By 

keviny01 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Strawberries (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES is often accompanied by films like Kurosawa's IKIRU, Ozu's TOKYO STORY, and de Sica's UMBERTO D whenever great films about old age are discussed. In this DVD's audio commentary, film scholar Peter Cowie also adds the recent Cannes winner AN ETERNITY AND A DAY to the list of such films. But what Bergman's film resembles the most, in my opinion, is Fellini's 8 1/2. Both films open with an nightmare sequence, and audaciously mix dreams and reality throughout the course of the narrative. Both are about a lonely and disillusioned intellectual who embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Both men in the films are haunted by the past and tormented by the present, and have to deal with unsettling issues about their lives, their work, and their religions. And both ultimately manage to reach some sort of emotional closure. The two films differ, of course, mainly in the tone with which the director presents the subjects. Fellini's film is exhilarating, ireverent, and ironic, while Bergman's is sedate, gloomy, depressing...

There is nothing depressing, however, about the quality of the new Criterion DVD version of WILD STRAWBERRIES, which is yet another standard-setting release from the company that has been setting such standards for the past 18 years. The DVD's spotless video transfer -- the result of a new print and frame-by-frame digital cleanup -- has made the film look at least 40 years younger. It is a tremendous improvement over Criterion's laserdisc release in 1991 in that it looks much sharper, has much better contrast (evident in the stark photograhy used in the opening nightmare sequence), and much clearer details. The mono audio track has also gone through restoration, and it sounds much cleaner, stronger, and clearer. The original Swedish opening credit sequence has also been restored for this DVD (the LD has English credits). The DVD is all-region, with newly translated optional English subtitles.

In the audio commentary, Peter Cowie (who also recorded a commentary on the THE SEVENTH SEAL DVD) analyzes the film's characters, themes, and styles, and, with his experience as a Bergman biographer, is able to attribute many of the film's elements to details in Bergman's own life. The opening dream sequence, he says, shows Bergman's homage of German Expressionist films. And the character of Isak Borg is based not on Bergman's father as most would believe, but Bergman himself. Cowie also includes observant remarks such as those regarding Bergman's comedic touches and loathing of action scenes.

Other extras include 30 or so photos taken from the set of the film, and a 90-minute interview of Bergman recorded for Swedish TV in 1998. In the interview, the pensive 80-year-old director, like Isak Borg in his film, undergoes a profound self-examination of his own. He speaks candidly about his strict upbringing as a child, says how he wishes he were not famous, recalls bitterly his being arrested (and later acquitted) for tax offenses in 1976, and grieves over his wife's death in 1995. One gets the impression from this interview that he is (still) not quite a happy man. But of course, it is precisely his pessimistic view that has resulted in many of his great films. But one hopes that, like Isak Borg, he will eventually find the inner peace that will enable him to see the world, however gloomy it is, simply as it is.

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bergman's Masterwork Poses the Important Question., November 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Wild Strawberries [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In Ingmar Berman's film masterpiece Smultronstallet (or `Wild Strawberries' B&W, 1957), the protagonist, an elderly professor who is facing death, has to come to face to face with a long life that has failed to answer the important questions. He is old now and faced with his own inadequacy and impotence.

Bergman introduces three young people into the drama to introduce life's most important question - that of the existence of God. The old man gives them a ride. One of the young men is thinking about becoming a parson; the other argues that God doesn't exist. The old man offers no opinion to the debate. He is silent, but it is a loud silence. It's a silence that reveals an amazing dimension of loss - the loss of year upon year of not coming to terms with this all-important question.

In one of the final scenes, Bergman masterfully closes in tight on the aged face of Professor Isak Borg (played by Victor Sjostrom). In that shot, we can see the whole universe in his eyes and all of its cares in the bags beneath them. Only Bergman could have directed that scene - only him. It makes Smultronstallet one of the most important films ever made. That one scene, better than any other that I know, captures `loss' on celluloid for all future generations to witness and have to deal with. If you see it, you may find yourself having to look away.

The imagery in Smultronstallet is unparalleled, except by Bergman's own Det Sjunde inseglrt (The Seventh Seal, 1957). Look for the handless watch, the corpse wagon, the sparseness of the first scene, the car windows turning to black - ominous signs are everywhere. Notice the clues that point to Bergman's existential philosophy (the twins write a song for a deaf man - as futile as Sisyphus' labor!) and the redemption themes (Izak pierces his hand as he looks into the window, or the line: "A doctor's first duty is to ask for forgiveness."). Notice also the outright defiance of the divine presence that he has bred into his son ("I will not be forced to live one day longer than I want to.").

Izak is ready to die, but it seems that, for him, life is more forbidding than death. He is a living corpse, dead already.

All of these factors conspire to create a film that is pure art, and one that gets richer with each repeated viewing. It is also ennobling and cathartic in the truest sense of the Greek drama - a warning to the men of ancient Greece to avoid the tragic flaw is the hero's undoing, and could be ours as well.

We are made to look hard at Izak. Do we like what we see? Have we answered the important question that he has not? If not, Izak is us. To quote a line from the film: "Is there no mercy?" The reply comes: "Don't ask me." I hope that all of us will fare better when confronted with this important question.