WILD STRAWBERRIES (SMULTRONSTALLET) Tribute to Ingmar Bergman on his 75th Birthday

The classic and poignant Wild Strawberries is one of the most admired, and most loved, of Ingmar Bergman’s films its culminating effect of achieved serenity and fulfillment is unique. Wild Strawberries traces an aged professor’s realization of the critical human choice between a life of selfishness or charity while on a day-trip with his daughter-in-law. The journey becomes a series of actual experiences, dream sequences, memories and flashbacks, in which this elderly man runs a visually striking recapitulation of his life, with action shifted skillfully between past and present, dream and reality. Reminiscent of a Bach fugue, the essence of this film is eloquent movement, wherein Bergman builds a complex impression of the past within the action of a day In an expressive performance, Victor Sjostrom (director of The Scarlet Letter) is charming as the old gentleman who returns to the wild strawberry patch where his was fatefully forsaken by his first love. Brilliant scenes, beautifully touching moments, and sheer nostalgia make Wild Strawberries a masterpiece of unchallenged quality