Nostalgia: It's a Powerful Thing

For as much as I've been into movies released by the Criterion Collection lately, I have never found the time to delve into movies made by Ingmar Bergman (mostly due to my leaning towards the Japanese titles)...until now.  I finally broke down and put on Wild Strawberries, a 1957 movie that centers around Isak Borg, a doctor who is about to receive his honorary degree from a college in Lund.  However, certain events on the way there force him to assess his life and confront his relations with people in his life, which to put it kindly, is not on good terms.  Driving out to Lund with his daughter-in-law, they encounter a trio of people trying to get to Italy, a bickering couple, and make a few stops at points of interest in Isak's life, namely a summer home and the house where his mother lives.

The performances in the movie are powerful, with Victor Sjostrom playing the role of Isak Borg to a tee while Bergman regulars Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin provide equally strong performances in the primary supporting roles.  The dream sequences that Borg has are generally tough to figure out, particularly the first sequence, but by the end of the movie, it will all make sense.  The younger generation isn't likely to appreciate this movie as much as the older generation, but it will tell a story that many, if not all, can relate to and perhaps even inspire to strive for the better.