Italian Realism and Bergman

This week we started off with some review before getting to our real subject matter. We watched films on Italian realism and then a film by Ingmar Bergman called “Wild Strawberries”. To see what Italian Realism was like we viewed Bicycle Thieves to get an idea of how these films were set up. These films were not made to have a happy ending or leave you with a feel-good ending, but to give more of an idea of life’s hardships. In the Bicycle Thieves we saw a father try to help his family to retrieve his bike in order to keep his job. This journey pushes him to the extremes and ultimately forces him to do what wronged him in the first place. He was forced to attempt to steal someone else’s bike and be shamed for it. Then his son runs to his side not knowing what his father did in an attempt to stand up for him. As others call him a thief in front of his child. After viewing this and hearing the story, it made me wonder if this was a more serious version of “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”. It follows a similar idea of going on a quest to find someone stolen property like the bike. Just that in Pee-Wees case, it is a more uplifting and comical film. Now maybe these films are completely unrelated, but who knows if there was some inspiration drown from the Italian Realism film in creating this one.

We then went on to watching a film by Bergman called “Wild Strawberries”. At the start of this film I did not like it right away. Mainly due to one simple fact, I really dislike watching a film where I have to spend the whole-time reading subtitles. I don’t whole it against any film and I know that there are great films out these in different languages it is just my personally preference. Besides that, I found the film to be quite charming and very enjoyable. The one thing I did not like was the ending. It came very abruptly and without talking on the result of some of the films issues. We never got to hear him make up with his son and forgive a debt, we don’t know why the people at the gas station were so thankful, and this makes me crazy. I know they never made another film to answer these questions because why ruin something so great, but why leave us with a huge cliffhanger and so many unanswered questions. With this very fact, I can’t see myself watching any other films by Bergman, especially if I was so confused by this one. The way some of his other films were described in class makes it very hard for me to justify another film. I am personally some one who likes a comedy or an action movie. So, something that will be a “mind fuck” or depressing just doesn’t seem like a film for me. Maybe as this class continues it will change my current opinion.