After living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence. Wild Strawberries is a 1957 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The original name was Smultronstallet, which means “The wild strawberry patch” in Swedish. The screenplay was wrote while Bergman was being hospitalized. This film is considered to be one of Bergman’s greatest and most moving films. This film was distributed by AB Svensk Filmindustri.
In the film, the professor is traveling to accept an honorary degree and is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make peace with his approaching death. Throughout the film, the professor had a variety of dreams and nightmares that was shown as flashbacks that dramatizes his remarkable voyages of self- discovery. I thought that this film was a really sad one and no one should ever live that way.
In class we discussed topics on Italian Neorealism. Italian Neorealism,also known as the Golden Age, is a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location, frequently using non-professional actors. Italian neorealism films are most about the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II in Italy. These films represents the changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life which includes poverty, oppression, injustice, and desperation. “Neorealism was a blend of traditional and new techniques, largely shaped by the war and its aftermath”.
One thing that Neorealist film makers wanted to show was the reality of life in Italy after World War II, and that it was harsh for many reasons. Majority had to do with the war itself. North of Italy was occupied by foreign troops and most of Italian territory was bombed throughout the conflict. Rome gained some of the bombings on a number of occasions, and in 1943 was occupied by the Nazis. After the war ended the entire country were in shambles physically and economically. Poverty, unemployment, and anger were part of everyday life. You would think after a war has ended, everything would be alright, but that was not the case. It was a really hard time for majority of people at this time.
From “An Introduction to World Cinema”, chapter 11 speaks more about Italian Neorealist Cinema. It says Roberto Rossellini was one of a handful of Italian documentary filmmakers in Rome, with Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti, who decided to use power of narrative films to influence postwar Italians against the return of the Facists after the collaps of the German army”. Each films that were directed by these two focused on a neorealist style that portrays fictional events as if they were actually happening without calling attention to the role of the main character in the story. A common theme within these films is a documentation of the horrible effects war and poverty had on the moral growth and development of kids who survived the war despite the severe hardships in postwar Italy.
Sources
An introduction to world cinema
https://www.lifeinitaly.com/cinema-italiano/italian-neorealism
History of the Motion Picture 
I really enjoyed learning about the Italian Neorealist movement. I think the films of that movement did a splendid job at immortalizing life post-World War II in Italy. After all, what better way to capture an era than by using the actual locations as settings and using non-professional actors from those locations? I wish we had watched more than just a snippet of a film from that era. I also found it extremely interesting that dictator Benito Mussolini’s son Vittorio Mussolini made films during that time.
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Good! The lecture was supposed to spark your interest. You can watch a few (easily available online) and get back to me 🙂
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I found it funny how all it took in the film to start the flash backs was a patch of wild strawberries and not the house itself. Yet in the film we never once saw the character at or eating any strawberries. I wonder why when it in translation that it lost all except Wild Strawberries. It is always strange when translating the title, it loses so much.
I don’t know if today something like Italian Neorealism would ever be successful. The idea of showing what the world looked like after a war. I think that many people today would not appreciate it and would most likely be frowned upon. It is good for us because it gave many people a view of what the world looks like at that time. Thinking about what we would have missed if we only had war time photos, but instead we get live scenes in a film to view it ourselves. IT is actually a great thing, but something I don’t believe most would do.
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I felt that although this film began with a presented goal that would be the main point of the story. I have to say that I got lost in it, and found myself completely focused on the dreams the man was having, and the events that happened along the way with the other characters.
I enjoy the explanation of Italian Neorealism that you gave. I think if this type of cinema made a rebound, it would be an interesting time for cinema that’s for sure. I believe I concur with Spencer that the majority of the American public would be opposed to the films, and it would not end well.
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