139 - Wild Strawberries

[captainofbeef]

- New digital transfer
- Commentary by film scholar Peter Cowie
- Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work, a 90-minute documentary by filmmaker and author Jorn Donner
- Stills gallery, featuring rare behind-the-scenes photos
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

[criterionmaster]

other Bergman masterpiece! The film follows an aging professor as he remembers incidents from his life through dreams. And as he thinks about everything he has done with his life. It made me think about what I was going to do with my life.

The black and white photography is just beautiful. Bergman doesn’t do anything to fancy with his shots but yet it is some of the most beautiful cinematography I have seen in a film.

Victor Sjöström gives a mind-blowing performance as well.

A very powerful story/film and one of the best I have ever seen. As soon as the credits rolled I knew I was going to buy this very soon because I immediately wanted to watch it again.

[ie]

Okay, so, I didn't see it through the Criterion Collection. I saw it through Turner Classic Movies, who I already ranted about to C-Master, and is off-topic, but I need to do so now, that way I can lead you up to my thoughts on Wild Strawberry.


Okay, Turner Classic Movies fucked up horribly on the subtitles of Wild Strawberries. Now, I use subtitles whenever I can for DVDs, so I've had plenty of experience with subtitles, and I must say that these subtitles were horrible. Sometimes, someone would be talking and, no subtitle. Other times, the subtitle would show for all of about a fifth of a second. And other times the font looked like it was disolving in an imaginary acid, so every once in a while, the letters would just start disolving.

Oh, and using a one-color white font? Absolutely brilliant.


So, these things distracted me greatly. I couldn't follow along with the story, and when I did, I didn't really care much about the main character. I was quite bored during some parts of the movie, although honestly I cannot give a passing judgement on the movie just yet. I need to re-watch it someday, probably even through the Criterion Collection, but for the moment, just wasn't impressed with it at all.


So, there you go. Hate or loathe me or whatever bullshit you're thinking at this moment. You guys love it, I didn't see too much in it (when I could actually understand what was going on), conflict of interest, yeah.

[criterionmaster]

I re-watched this film yesterday with my mom. Way better this time, and I loved it so much last time. I think what made it so great was I had to kinda explain to my mom what was going on, so I had to come up with interpretations, and saying what was happening out loud made me see the genius in it even more. That ending is so powerful, and surprisingly happy for a Bergman film.

SPOILER: Click to show

The last thing he remembers to is such a simple scene, yet so beautiful. I am glad he thought of some little moments, instead of something big, made the film better.

And to ie, I watched the film on TCM and didn't have much problem. I did see they didn't translate a whole scene, but I think that was because it was some speech and didn't have to do with the film. At first I thought they messed up some dialogue, but really the character just said the line awkwardly. Maybe it was just you, or they changed the versions; I didn't see much of a problem. Not to the point where the film was unwatchable or anything, there are always little problems with subtitles. I would re-watch it someday; I think you will enjoy the whole ending scene, and the whole film for that matter.

[kiddo]

This film has so much symbolism in it, one could analyze it for days... It's an overwhelmingly complex dish which can be tasted in so many different ways. One can dig deeper and deeper, and the bottom is only where your curiousity stops.

I hope that made sense?

I'm loooooving it. Bergmans best? For the moment: Yes.

[Nomansvally]

You're definitely right about it's depth. I've written a 6 page analysis of the film for school.