Wild Strawberries

journey of past regrets, and somewhere in those dreams you fit yourself and you look back at your past and regrets. This movie is so profound, sensitive and personal. Bergman talks about so many things such as Perception of society of a person, failed relationships/marriages, meaning of love, past regrets, loneliness and also Anti - natalism. Here everyone outside of his life knows isak as a prestigious, greatly accomplished, wise, kind and loving man, but people who know him closely, know that he is a selfish, egoistic man, who never cared for anyone other than himself. Bergman tells how we all live dual lives, one for society and one for ourselves. But now as he has grown old and the loneliness and old memories eating him up, he realises his past doings, and he dwells on those past regrets emotionally, he feels this loneliness is punishment for those actions. We also come to know about his unhappy marriage and how he loved another woman sara, and he still love her to this day, Bergman not only shows human vulnerability towards love and relationships but also shows the consequences of it, as a result of unhappy marriage , a generational trauma passed down to his son, who feels unwanted and as he grow old he believes bringing child in this suffering place is unethical. I loved how both sara characters played by the same actress Bibi Andersson, and both had similar characteristics, which in a way brings peace on the wounds of past for isak, that journey he spends with that young hitchhiker sara, you can see he cherished it more than anything. It was like a ghost from the past, but a kind and loving one which helps isak to finally move on from the past. It is also the best road film, i would say. On the surface the journey might seem simple, but it carries lots of baggage in the form of memories, mistakes and just pure human emotions. Wild strawberries was like a trigger or hidden place where he enjoyed his most youth with his family and sara in particular, and we all have one such thing which takes us on a nostalgic journey into the past, makes us reflect on our mistakes and actions. Another scene which i want to talk about is that opening scene where isak wandering off the street looks at the clock with no hands and legs, and sees his own dead body in the coffin. I felt that the time has stopped for him, not because he is nearing death or old, but he was still in that time where he still loved sara, and he never moved on from that time, and whatever life he lived after that was not his life/time, because he was never really happy, he was already dead, thats why there was no hands and legs in the clock and we see his dead body in coffin. It can be something else too, but this is what i felt. This is my fav Bergmann's film but i might not revisit it, because it made me feel those emotions which i did not want to evoke in myself, it became so personally effective.