BEFORE: I've got a difficult decision to make - I could really open this Bergman thing up and add several more films, the man did direct about 70 films after all - and the linking seems to just BE there, no matter what order I watch his films in. (But I'm going to try to stick with chronological...) Having added two films already which are streaming on HBO Max, searching on "Bergman" on that service led me to four more that I wasn't planning on. But if I watch them all, that could seriously mess me up, not just mentally but also I'd have to double up films, or risk not finishing January on time. Plus, it's one thing to use up a bunch of slots here in January, because it's a new year, plenty of room, still 290 free slots before the end of the year, but what if I'll need those slots in November? I just came off of a very boring November and December where I could only watch a small number of movies, and that's no good. 34 or 35 films watched in January, instead of 30 or 31, could mean that will happen again.
I think I'll try to double-up a bit this week, if the Bergman films are not too long - many are under the 90-minute mark, which is good - I can watch two a day sometimes. I was hoping to contain the Bergman project all into one week, but now I think it's going to creep into next week, too. The whole point was to clear the five films off my DVR from 2019 that were taking up space, now it seems I might be down for nine Bergman films before i can move on. Well, I am at home most days, with nothing to do, maybe it's a sign that I need to do this. And maybe, if I'm thinking positively, if vaccinations go well and the U.S. can turn this COVID thing around, maybe we can get back to traveling and take a vacation later in the year, and I can take a break from movies - so it's a form of optimism if I load up January and clear my calendar later on. Yeah, let's go with that.
Max von Sydow carries over from "The Seventh Seal" and so do several other actors. Nothing on the level of last year's 26 actors carrying over between "Twilight" movies, but whatever.
THE PLOT: After living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence.
AFTER: Von Sydow only appears briefly here, as a gas station attendant - obviously he wasn't old enough at the time to play the main role of the aging college professor, but it is what it is. Max certain acts the hell out of his grease monkey role. I wish that somebody could have remade this film in the 1990's or 2000's with von Sydow as the lead, that could have been great.
I'm learning so much about Swedish culture in the 1950's, though - this is just a film about a car trip taken by a professor with his daughter-in-law, on his way to receive an award in Lund for his 50 years of medical service. Along the way they encounter a bunch of misfit characters, and also the professor visits his childhood home and this triggers a series of flashbacks. The fact that the same actress plays both a young student they give a ride to AND the cousin from his youth that he was in love with probably triggers some memories loose, too.
Dr. Isak Borg grew up in a big family with 10 kids - and one attractive cousin, it seems. Sara, the cousin, was torn between Isak and his brother, but she'd go on marry the brother, it seems. Visiting that old house allows Isak to watch the scenes from his childhood play out again, in the style of "A Christmas Carol", where Scrooge was an observer of the past who couldn't interact with it. He remembers the day of Uncle Aron's birthday party, the big celebration and how the twins wrote a song for him, and of course that's the day that he kissed his cousin Sara after she picked, you guessed it, some wild strawberries.
Borg's traveling by car with Marianne, his daughter-in-law, (though she calls him "Uncle Isak") who's been staying at his house - and gradually we find out that there's marital tension between her and Isak's son, Evald. Perhaps Evald takes after his father a bit too much? But after the first stop the pair is joined by three young students, one played by the same actress as Sara, who seems to be in a three-way relationship with the other two hitchhikers, Anders and Viktor, and that sort of mirrors the love triangle Dr. Isak had with Sara and his brother - right? Later after a near collision with another car, a married couple joins the group, but they quarrel so much that the group votes to kick them out of the car after a while. "Don't fight in front of the children." (Children? They're college students!)
One could possibly make a case that some of these characters are not real - come ON, the girl looks exactly like Isak's cousin? And she's in a love triangle? She's a figment of Dr. Borg's imagination, right? Or a ghost or the reincarnated spirit of his cousin? No? I guess maybe I'm reading too much into things here, probably a lot of young Swedish women look very similar.
Anyway, as the 16-hour car trip progresses, Dr. Borg starts having dark dreams again, this time he's trying to pass his college medical examinations, but it's not going well. He can't see anything under the microscope, the words on the blackboard don't make any linguistic sense, and he diagnoses the patient as being dead, only to have her laugh at him for doing so. (The examiner and the patient are played by the same actors as the quarreling couple from the car, another use of dual roles.). Hey, we've all been there, right? Had that dream where there's a pop quiz and we forgot to study, or we left our books in our locker, or forgot to wear pants to school? Right? I think after just two films I'm cracking the Bergman code, this was a very troubled man who had a lot of stress dreams about school and death and relationships. In other words, totally normal.
The trip progresses, and after one more stop to visit Borg's elderly mother, and one more round of stress dreams (I think this one shows Borg's wife cheating on him, but honestly I'm not sure)
eventually the odd band gets to Lund, just in time for the ceremony at Lund University. Dr. Borg is honored, and the hitchhikers stick around to watch him in the procession. Isak's son Evald re-connects with his wife Marianne, despite the fact that she is pregnant and he doesn't want to have children. I think what this is really about is how the people we encounter during the day affect our dreamscape at night - the encounter with the quarreling couple reminded Dr. Borg of his own unhappy marriage, and meeting the young students triggered dreams of his own childhood and also gave him the college stress dream. But after he gets the affirmation and commendation from the university, and he is asleep in his son's home, he dreams of a family picnic by the lake. He's found some kind of peace, and not just having the death dreams any more. We should all be that lucky, at least from time to time.
This whole film came about after Bergman went on a long drive from Stockholm to Dalarna, during which he stopped in Uppsala and visited his grandmother's house. And Woody Allen essentially remade this film, not once but twice, as "Stardust Memories" and "Deconstructing Harry". But I see a lot of connections here to more modern films that I watched last week - the dual roles (also seen in "A Kiss Before Dying"), the long car trip (also seen in "Locke") the flashbacks (seen in "Capone") and the marital stress (also seen in "Wildlife"). Why do I get the feeling that so many other films are going to feel "Bergman-esque" when this week is over?
Also starring Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Gertrud Fridh, Ake Fridell, Gunnel LIndblom, Maud Hansson, Ulf Johansson (all carrying over from "The Seventh Seal"), Victor Sjostrom, Julian Kindahl, Folke Sundquist, Bjorn Bjelfvenstam, Naima Wifstrand, Gunnel Brostrom, Gunnar Sjoberg, Ann-Marie Wiman, Sif Ruud, Yngve Nordwall, Per Sjostrand, Gie Petre, Eva Norée, Goran Lindquist, Pek Skogsberg, Lena Bergman, Monica Ehrling.
RATING: 6 out of 10 gallons of free gasoline
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