A BITTER - SWEET RETROSPECTIVE : WILD STRAWBERRIES

I know, jumping 30 years ahead from Murnau to Bergman might be seen as a slightly larger jump in topics than usual; however ,I reckon you the faithful blog readers are pretty used to it by now… Besides, both films are shot in black and white – although they don’t have much else in common. Honestly, the idea when I started writing this was to not have a week’s update made up entirely of silent movies, thus a bunch of movies that seem to prove completely unwatchable to some… You might protest, saying Bergman is not your idea of a watchable film. True, he is a very Scandinavian director indeed. His films are imbued with a certain northern sense of sadness that is very difficult to shake. A lot of his films are (as far as I can tell) based on talking as opposed to action. The fact that they are usually in Swedish doesn’t help. But I find, with just a little persistence, you will discover true gems in his work. Just like wild strawberries.
Professor Borg is 78 years old. He lives alone with his housekeeper. He is quite a famous academic in his field and his small hometown reveres him as one of their most celebrated sons, a great philanthropist and generally speaking an honor to the town. Professor Borg, however ,is by no means the saint they make him out to be. Nor is he that much of a sinner. He is a rather egotistical old man, stuck in his ways and rather grumpy. He doesn’t want much in life and he doesn’t have much to do with other people – his own son included. One day, he must make a trip to Lund to receive honors for 50 years as an academic. The detour he makes to his old family home, a visit to his mother and a young hitch hiker who is the spitting image of his first, lost sweetheart bring bitter and sweet memories flooding back. Has Professor Borg made the right choices? Or will his memories be tainted with regret?
As I read up on this film, I discovered there is a connection between this film and silent cinema. The lead role of Professor Borg is played by Victor Sjöström, one of the most important directors of the silent age. The film also comes highly credited, Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival, Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. My festival guide calls it Bergman’s most humane film. I agree with this, but don’t expect it to be a happy film because of it.
The main theme of the film is loneliness. Even in families, between all the generations, between his mother and Professor Borg and not surprisingly between Professor Borg and his son there is a great coldness and lack of any feeling. Not because they do not care for one another but because they cannot seem to show it – or show it adequately. By the time Borg realizes this and tries to do something, his son is a grown man and it is too late for their relationship. Ewald (the son) is too deeply scarred by the legacy of loneliness handed down through the generations. Most things in life are learned in the family and loneliness is pretty much the same for Bergman. There is indeed a sense of the problem being handed down from his mother – a matriarch and mother of 10 children with no time for “nonsense” (now living alone having outlived all her children except the Professor and neglected by her grand children and their children). She hands her pain down to the wounded Professor Borg who has shunned all emotions for his own protection who passes this on to his son who wouldn’t know an emotion if he sat on one but knows the pain of their absence all too well… There is, however, some hope for Borg, especially in his newer connections. I found this resonated with me too. I am not 78 (far from it, thankfully) but I am also no longer a child and I too find that when the older relationships are broken, they are much, MUCH harder to fix. New connections on the other hand can always be founded on a stronger basis, using what we have learnt in the past. So it is with Professor Borg. It may be too late to change a lot of things, but we feel that he is not completely without hope.
The film is eerie with its closeness to life. In a lot of families, or shall we say for a lot of people, even though they may be surrounded by people (a large family, many acquaintances…) loneliness may set in very deeply. Especially (as, we will find out, is the case with Professor Borg) something has happened to alienate you specifically, hurting you so much you are forced to “fold in on yourself” for example… We can tell in a heartbeat whether we feel lonely or not, but how about what made us so? How much of it was us? How much of it was forced upon us? How much will we regret when the twighlight comes and we are looking back on our lives? Bergman ponders these deep questions with grace and style. You may finds bits of the film hitting a little too close to home but watch it all the same. Nothing at all wrong with a little bit of soul searching…