NR | 1h 31min | Drama | 1957
“Wild Strawberries”(1957) begins with lines uttered by the protagonist, an irascible professor Isak Borg (Victor David Sjostrom): “I am an old pedant, which, at times, has been rather trying for myself and those around me.” This forms the kernel of screenwriter-director Ingmar Bergman’s Swedish drama on selfishness and its poisoning of personhood.
Isak, a 78-year-old widowed physician, contemplates his life through flashbacks, dreams, and experiences, while on a long drive from Stockholm to Lund University to receive his Doctor Jubilaris, an honor bestowed for 50 years of service. The journey isn’t so much a car ride as a voyage of self-reflection. Marianne (the lovely Ingrid Thulin), his daughter-in-law, accompanies him….