Wild Strawberries

IMDb’s 131st movie was tough. The reason it took so long to post a review is that it’s taken this long to really decide how I feel about it.

The verdict is that the movie was retroactively better than I originally thought. Like Napoleon Dynamite, the movie had to grow on me because I wasn’t expecting it. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not think that I am saying these two movies are similar. They absolutely are not.

The reason I say my opinion of the movie evolved with time is due to its cerebral nature. It requires that you put yourself in the place of Dr. Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) in order to truly enjoy the film.

As far as the script is concerned, it does a very good job of putting you in Borg’s shoes, assuming you try to stand in his shoes. It doesn’t force it on you as a first-person narrative might. Some of the dialog is a little forced, but I chalk that up to me not speaking German. This could easily be due to the fact that I can only read subtitles. However, English is a Germanic language so many of the tones of voice are similar.

The acting is great. Every now and again it felt a little stale, but then it felt stylistically intentional. The movie is very odd and the world is thick, as if you could cut it with a knife. This leads to a somewhat robotic feel, but the movie as a whole seems intended to be trippy like this. I really enjoyed the feeling the acting and script gave me.

The same can be said for the directing and cinematography. If Ingmar Bergman was trying to create a heavy, imaginative, cerebral film, then he definitely succeeded. He held the shots a long time and this unfortunately reminded me of Solaris. For anyone curious about Solaris, don’t be. It’s dangerous to your health. It’s a Russian film and some of the shots are held for a solid minute, sometimes even two. I mean you’re staring at a part of a lake for two minutes without the camera moving and nothing really happening. Your Anthropology professor will tell you that Americans these days lack patience and that’s why we don’t like this type of film-making, but let’s be fair. It’s boring. So that was my only problem with it — mostly due to a predisposition.

The soundtrack really took me out of the movie, but it’s 1957. What did I expect? Nothing. I expected nothing. The same can be said for the special effects. HOWEVER, they do pop someone’s head and that was really awesome for 1957.

Ultimately, I would not discourage anyone from watching this film, but it’s not like I’m going to go out and talk it up the way that I do Harvey.

Author	Script	Acting	Cinematography	Soundtrack	Directing	Special Effects	Overall
Ben	8	9	8	6	7	7	7.500
Marc	7	9	8	8	8	8	8.000
Jon	7	8	7	7	7	8	7.333