In the opening scenes of Wild Strawberries an elderly Doctor is puzzled by a sequence of dreams...
In one, as he gazes skyward, he is taken aback by a town clock without any hands.
As he turns in the street to take in the rest of his surroundings, an ornate horse-drawn carriage - trimmed with a Golden Cherub - turns a corner. A wheel catches on a fixture protruding from a building and upsets the procession - at which point - a nondescript wooden coffin spills out onto the quiet cobblestone street.
Taken aback at first, the doctor draws closer when he notices a corpse in the open casket.
Boldly, he snatches up the lifeless body, and pulls it up to maneuver a gaze at the face.
It's his own, naturally.
Is he staring death in the face?
A few years ago, I experienced a remarkably similar nightmare, in some respects.
In mine, I stumbled into an empty room painted in a blinding, dazzling shade of etheric white. At my feet, I spied my naked dead body with a splash of garish red blood marking a gaping wound at my chest. Almost sacredly, I carried my limp form out of the room.
Curiously, the following evening I was attending a party and in the course of a conversation mentioned the disturbing dream to another guest. Coincidentally, a woman standing nearby turned out to be a dream analyst who proceeded to help me fathom the depths of the startling images.
She noted that the room represented my "house" (me) and that the color of "white" symbolized the attainment of purity. The body, she asserted, was my "dead self". Evidently, I was in a phase of great change in my life, she conjectured. A part of me had died and now there was renewal in my life. The reason I cradled my dead body, she explained, was because we must have compassion on our "former selves".
In essence, we are the sum total of all our experiences and must recognize and accept that.
In the case of the good doctor in Wild Strawberries some might speculate that he was coming face-to-face with mortality. The manner in which he was handling the issue would tend to suggest that he was at odds with the foreboding signs.
After all, noted psychologist Carl Jung believed dreams were expressed in a symbolic language; also, that they were the pathway to self-actualization.
In contrast, Freud argued that dreams were a matter of convenience.
They help to prolong sleep instead of waking up - and subsequently - are the guardians of sleep and not its disturbers
If we are to concur with Freud, the meaning of the good Doctor's dreams signal one avenue of thought.
I am inclined to focus on the Assyrians who alleged dreams were simply omens.
Dreams, according to their cultural heritage, contained warnings; more importantly, were God's way of demanding some type of action.
Yes, perhaps the hour had come for the retiring physician to take stock of his life!
The Wild Strawberries figure quite prominently into the scheme of things, too.
Medieval stone masons carved strawberry designs on altars and around the tops of pillars in Churches and Cathedrals to symbolize perfection and righteousness.
All told, it is evident that Ingmar Bergman's storytelling devices profoundly hit their mark.
The Cinematography in the film is breathtaking.
In one scene, the camera slowly pans as the Doctor cautiously strides down a desolate lane; you could hang a gilded frame on each moment of film for each is so artfully crafted.
While the directing itself is at times formal, it is natural and seamless nonetheless.
His signature style is immediately recognizable on film.
The relentless close-up of the face is one of the useful thematic keys to Bergman's work, for example.
Moreover, his provocative screen images often generate startling feelings of raw, complex subjectivity as well.
When asked about the meaning of his films, he said, "...it is a difficult and dangerous question and I usually give this evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it."
Mr. Bergman once noted, "No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls."
In a staggering body of work spanning fifty years he has proven that to be true.
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