Wild Strawberries

This week we spent some time reviewing for the exam, learning about the way movies were made post WW2 in other countries, and watching Wild Strawberries.  I missed the first day of class this week so I missed watching the Bicycle Thieves movie, but I’ve seen it before.  The ending is truly frustrating, but after learning in this class that these movies were made as a direct response to post WW2 feelings around the world, it makes way more sense.  I’m glad that cinema was a good outlet for these feelings to occur and it let many people recover from the horrors of the war.  While Hollywood has endings that were almost always happy, European cinema didn’t always have a happy ending.  It’s refreshing to have movies that end with things unanswered and just capture a moment in time.  A movie doesn’t always have to have a full character arc or a lesson learned by the protaganist by the end.  In Bicycle Thieves, that much is clear.  Having to resort to the same underhanded and criminal tactics that the people who wronged him did must have been humiliating, and being publicly shamed proved it.  Other than Bicycle Thieves, we watched Wild Strawberries as well.

I’m not sure if an official dubbing in english exists, but I’m incredibly pleased that we watched it in its original language.  I knew the Criterion Collection wouldn’t dream of ruining a film such as this in that way, but I did have my doubts when it first started.  For me, I find that watching a movie in its intended language is always more enjoyable.  Anyway, Wild Strawberries is a film by Ingmar Bergman about an old man who is on his way to receive a medical award.  The cinematography was incredible, and I absolutely loved how the locations all felt so intimate.  Normally location shooting is to show off the grand majesty of the countryside and to show how beatiful and vast it is, but in this movie none of the locations felt like they were really larger than life.  Seeing the characters climb trees or pick flowers or even go sailing made it all feel personal and real.  The locations never overshadowed the actors themselves.  Speaking of the actors, lets talk about them.  We had an incredible lead, who was very mild mannered and reserved in his role, which fit his character perfectly.  I loved how all of the children thought of him as the wise old man who knows everything there is to know while the slightly older characters even went as far as to have problems with him.  He himself had many problems, and they all manifested in his dreams.  His first dream was clearly feelings of loneliness that lead to a sad and alone death.  Not to mention that he was getting older, as symbolized by the clock.  The rest of his dreams also showed feelings of anger towards a failed marriage and inadequecy for his life accomplishments.  Overall, I thought this movie was really good and showed a unique perspective into the march of time as a whole.