![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Blind-Spots-Wild-Strawberries.jpg\" "\\"Blind-Spots-Wild-Strawberries\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>here are so many Ingmar Bergman films I haven’t seen (and most all of them are considered essentials by cinephiles) that there will likely be a Bergman film on every one of my Blindspot lists for years to come. Last year it was The Virgin Spring<\/em>; this year I opted for Wild Strawberries<\/em>, which generally comes near the top of lists of greatest Bergman films but I’ve been avoiding because, really, “after living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence” doesn’t sound like that interesting or compelling a story (that’s the IMDb description). But, of course, Bergman’s genius is in how he tells his stories and the depth of humanity he instills in them more than the plot details themselves.<\/p>\n The film is much more subtle than the description above suggests, with the professor’s coldness mostly demonstrated by his terse treatment of his long-time housekeeper and somewhat estranged daughter-in-law (and son, by extension). He’s bitter and unsympathetic without being necessarily outright cruel. The night before he’s to head off to accept an honorary degree, he has a surreal dream culminating in a vision of his own death, which sets him on a journey of memory the following day as he detours by places of childhood and youthful significance and interacts with the young people he finds there now.<\/p>\n Seeing one’s own death as an impetus for self-reflection might be a common trope, but Bergman keeps it feeling fresh both by the evocative strangeness of the dream (a precursor, perhaps, to the nightmarish weirdness of Persona<\/em>) and the rather opaque interactions that follow. It’s clear that the resurrected memories of lost loves and family reunions, as well as his conversations with his daughter-in-law and the trio of young people affect the professor greatly, but it’s far from the pat lesson-learning that you’d likely find in an American film.<\/p>\n The professor is played by Swedish director Victor Sjostrom, best known for silent films like The Wind<\/em> and The Phantom Carriage<\/em>, and he’s pretty great, surrounded by Bergman stock figures like Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, and Ingrid Thulin. Some of them are in pretty small parts (like von Sydow), but they leave their mark on the film nonetheless. That plus the surprisingly surreal bits elevated the film far beyond what I expected. It didn’t quite reach the top of my Bergman list, which is still occupied by Persona<\/em> and The Virgin Spring<\/em>, but I’m definitely pleased to cross it off my Blind Spot list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are so many Ingmar Bergman films I haven’t seen (and most all of them are considered essentials by cinephiles) that there will likely be a Bergman film on every one of my Blindspot lists for years to come. Last year it was The Virgin Spring; this year I opted for Wild Strawberries, which generally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[143,1346],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Blind-Spots-Wild-Strawberries.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36657,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/challenge-week-52-autumn-sonata\/","url_meta":{"origin":32554,"position":0},"title":"Challenge Week 52: Autumn Sonata","author":"Jandy","date":"February 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Finishing the Challenge out with a classic Bergman-Bergman film, the only one Ingmar and Ingrid ever made together, and it's a doozy. There are Ingmar Bergman films I love to bits, but I often find him a tough nut to crack, his film striking me as a bit austere and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/tf-autumn-sonata-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":560,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/rip-ingmar-bergman\/","url_meta":{"origin":32554,"position":1},"title":"R.I.P. Ingmar Bergman","author":"Jandy","date":"July 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Ingmar Bergman, one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers ever, died yesterday. I haven't seen a lot of Bergman films, and those I have tend to strand me between a sense that I may be watching something incredible and my realization that I'm not understanding half of it. Reading\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32546,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/blindspotting-2013-the-list\/","url_meta":{"origin":32554,"position":2},"title":"Blindspotting 2013: The List","author":"Jandy","date":"February 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm joining the Blind Spots folks (seems like most bloggers I know are doing it!) this year, but that's because I'd nearly decided not to even make a list this year. I mean, it's pretty foolish of me to try, for two major reasons. One, I did terribly on last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Blind-Spots-2013.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36384,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/challenge-week-38-fanny-and-alexander\/","url_meta":{"origin":32554,"position":3},"title":"Challenge Week 38: Fanny and Alexander","author":"Jandy","date":"October 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This is one of my least favorite kinds of posts to write, because it's so hard to write about beloved films from master filmmakers that I liked but didn't strongly connect to. It's one thing if I DISLIKE a film like this, because at least that's something to hang a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tf-feat-fannyalexander.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30500,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/blind-spots-2012-the-virgin-spring\/","url_meta":{"origin":32554,"position":4},"title":"Blind Spots 2012: The Virgin Spring","author":"Jandy","date":"March 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"[This post is part of a series to identify and catch up with various blind spots in my cinematic knowledge, choosing twelve films to watch in 2012. See the series intro for the rest of my picks] A couple of years ago, I was watching The Virgin Spring at one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Blind-Spots-virginspring.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1653,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/favorite-films-one-letter-at-a-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":32554,"position":5},"title":"Favorite Films, One Letter at a Time","author":"Jandy","date":"November 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I rarely organize my collections alphabetically, at least not as the major organizational tool, since the letter the title starts with is usually less meaningful than the year it was made or the genre that it's in. 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