STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Ingmar Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957, wri & dir by Ingmar Bergman, w/ Victor Sjostrom, 93mns, Sweden)

93 minutes. This all-time classic of world cinema is 93 minutes. 

In 93 tight, wouldn't cut a thing minutes, Swedish film artist Ingmar Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES covers everything. Almost everything.

Lyrical and haunting dream and memory imagery start and end the movie.

Life, dreams, fear of death, memories, aging, regret, trauma and dysfunction from parent to child, redemption, love, spiritual questions. . .

The story is simple. The movie is complex. 

Aging doctor and renowned professor Isak Borg (Swedish silent director legend Victor Sjostrom) decides spur of the moment to drive to an awards ceremony where he'll be honored rather than fly. Marianne, his daughter-in-law, estranged from Isak's son but living with Isak, asks to join. The two visit Isak's childhood home, his mother. They pick up happy go lucky young hitchhikers, encounter a vicious couple in a brutal marriage. Isak has disturbing dreams, beautiful memories, wandering daydreams. Marianne reveals secrets...

The entire movie takes place across this drive from the moment Isak wakes up from a crazy dream sequence about death to the moment he is about to drift off to sleep at the end of the day.

Thus, the movie's structure mirrors the journey of life itself.

WILD STRAWBERRIES is one of the key mid-twentieth century world cinema jams. WILD STRAWBERRIES, Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS, Godard's BREATHLESS, Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON, Fellini's LA STRADA crashed upon the shores of American art house cinemas like artistic typhoons and blew open the minds of aspiring moviemakers.

Amazing actor Bibi Andersson plays dual roles in the movie as a Sara from Isak’s past and a Sara in his present.

Within a decade, American movies like BONNIE & CLYDE, MEAN STREETS, THE CONVERSATION, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, CHINATOWN, ANNIE HALL would show the influence of (or even be made by moviemakers from) the World Cinema renaissance.

Bergman's influence can be felt in the work of moviemakers as varied as Woody Allen and Lars Von Trier, Mike Leigh and Stanley Kubrick, Richard Linklater and Martin Scorsese.

Anyone hip to the WILD STRAWBERRIES structure might see its influence on Scorsese's recent gangsters in winter epic THE IRISHMAN which is largely structured around a road trip to a wedding.

The biggest hosannas have to go to the movie itself. Bergman makes the (still) daring choice to center his movie on someone in their mid-70's. And the movie's themes feel like the preoccupations of someone in later life looking back on their choices. That Bergman wrote and directed this movie when he was still in his late 30's is amazing. That the movie is so true, vital, powerful, experimental, cinematic is a testament to the crossroads of youth and aging upon which it was made.

Bergman always cites Sjostrom's own 1921 THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE as a key movie influence. So we're watching a movie made by a fan starring one of his favorite moviemakers. Sjostrom gives a towering performance. Bergman delivers a towering film. The entire Bergman repertory company (most of whom are here ) including regulars like Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstand, Max Von Sydow, Ingrid Thulin pop up and slay.

Famous Swedish movie director Viktor Sjostrom (who also made classic silent movies in America) plays the lead role of lonely, isolated Dr. Isak Bjorg who looks back at his life’s decisions across a one day road trip.

This writer has always been partial to the Bergmans with light and dark. Bergman's solemn watershed world cinema movie THE SEVENTH SEAL (where a medieval knight plays chess with death) is one this writer admires more than loves. There are a lot of (almost always worthy) Bergmans that breathe heavy under the weight of unhappiness. 

But Bergman was also a life loving vital exuberant person. Something his many affairs, children, co-workers would confirm. And when we get Bergman the life lover and life interrogator. . .well friend, that's the tops.

Movies like SMILES ON A SUMMER NIGHT, WILD STRAWBERRIES, PERSONA, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE, and FANNY AND ALEXANDER (the spiritual sibling to WILD STRAWBERRIES) crackle with life and impudent philosophical interrogation. 

Cinema, like everything, has high tides and low tides. The 1950's was a high tide for mic drop classics from around the world. It is also one of this writer's favorite eras of moviemaking. International triumphs from Akira Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Rossellini, Satyajit Ray, Alain Resnais, to name just a few are part of the secret chord off the tuning fork that inspires and motivates this writer. 

If you need to crack the window because of the stifling heat in the un air conditioned car we call life right now, get a blast of fresh air by watching WILD STRAWBERRIES. Its very marrow-editing, cinematography, light transition, structure, performance-is the vital life essence itself, distilled and made cinema.

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.