Countries & Movies: Sweden
The Swedish cinema is represented in the Golden Thousand by 22 films. This list is headed by Ingmar Bergman's family drama "Fanny and Alexander".
The second line in the list of Swedish film masterpieces is occupied by the picture of the same Ingmar Bergman "Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)".
The story of the creation of the film is quite simple and unpretentious. The director told this story in an interview in 1960. In short, in the fall of 1956, the 38-year-old Bergman visited his grandmother's house, which was obviously a nice corner for the director associated with pleasant memories. During this visit, the thought occurred to him how great it would be if you could open the door - and get into childhood. Open another door - and return to your real life. Turn the corner - and find yourself in some other period of your life... And in the spring of 1957, while in a hospital bed, Bergman put this thought-dream-fantasy into a script. And he gave the name to his future film "Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)". Which in Swedish is an idiom of the expression "cute corner".
However, in the book of memoirs "Images: my life in film" from 1990, Bergman refuted his words of 30 years ago, writing that he, in fact, never fell out of childhood (a joke of a genius-FG). But, anyway, it is known that he finished working on the script "Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)" on May 31, 1957, and on July 2 of that year he started filming. And on December 26, 1957, the film was released in Swedish cinemas.
Six months after the premiere, the film "Wild Strawberries" was presented at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was awarded the main prize - the Golden Bear. Among the 24 nominees for this award, the strongest, perhaps, was Stanley Kramer's film "The Defiant Ones".
2 months later, in August 1958, the film "Wild Strawberries" became one of the winners of the so-called "parallel section" (independent film program) of the Venice International Film Festival and received the Pasinetti Award.
In 1959, Ingmar Bergman's film "Wild Strawberries" won 5 awards at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Argentina. Among these awards was the award for the Best film. Among the almost 30 contenders for this award were the British film "A Night to Remember" by Roy Ward Baker and the Soviet film adaptation of the novel by F.Dostoevsky's "The Idiot", performed by Ivan Pyriev. In the same year, in 1959, Bergman's film was awarded the main film award of the Danish Film Academy Bodil as the best European film.
Besides, in 1959, the film "Wild Strawberries" received two nominations for the British BAFTA Award, including in the category Best Film from any Source. But the British Film Academy, as it has happened more than once, awarded this award to the British film "Room at the Top" directed by Jack Clayton. And this is despite the fact that this undeniably wonderful film with the great Simone Signoret in the main role has already been awarded the main prize in the Best British Film category. It turns out that the "Room at the Top" turned out to be like a fishless place. Although among the nominees were, in particular, the American film "Cat on a Hot Roof" by Richard Brooks, the Indian film "Ôporajito অপরাজিত) (The Unvanquished)" by Satyajit Ray, the Italian film "Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria)" by Federico Fellini, the Soviet film masterpiece "Cranes are Flying" by Mikhail Kalatozov, the already mentioned Stanley Kramer's film "The Defiant Ones" and others.
In early 1960, Ingmar Bergman's film "Wild Strawberries", along with 4 more films from different countries, received the American Golden Globe Award. However, of all these five, except for "Wild Strawberries", perhaps only the German film "Die BrĂĽcke (The Bridge)" by Bernhard Wicki can be recognized as a movie masterpiece. And for the Academy Award, Bergman's film was nominated only in the category of Best Original Screenplay. But the matter was limited only to the nomination.
Ingmar Bergman's film received almost only positive reviews from professional film critics. For example, Peter Bradshaw: "A wonderfully composed movie in which Ingmar Bergman is able to vary the tone from melancholy to gaiety in the most deeply satisfying way." Or, Geoff Andrew: "One of Bergman's warmest, and therefore finest films". Sergey Kudryavtsev gave the film 10 points on a 10-point system.
True, Bosley Crowther from The New York Times, although he spoke quite flatteringly about the film, but, due to his sarcastic nature, did not fail to insert a few pins in his review: "Wild Strawberries is so thoroughly mystifying that we wonder whether Mr. Bergman himself knew what he was trying to say....This is not to say, however, that the film doesn't have its brilliant scenes and its beautifully touching moments, its tatters of sheer nostalgia....Mr. Bergman, being a poet with the camera, gets some grand, open, sensitive images, but he has not conveyed full clarity in this film."
However, what does the opinion of the film reviewer of the mouthpiece of the US Democratic Party matter if the titans of world cinema - Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky - called Ingmar Bergman's film "Wild Strawberries" among their most favorite films?!
Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefedov, who is able to discern the socio-political subtext in almost every film, noted in his review: "Wild Strawberries" made an indelible impression on contemporaries, enriching the ideas about the film language, and to this day remains unique due to the fascinating comprehension of the abysses of human psychology....«Wild Strawberries» ... would hardly have caused a powerful resonance... if the film – for all its inner autobiography – had not been in tune with the atmosphere of society, had not reflected important features of Western civilization. Ingmar Bergman was one of the first (and, perhaps, for different reasons than the Italian Michelangelo Antonioni) to intuitively come to the problems of disunity, he sensed a total ideological crisis that became obvious a decade later."
Among modern moviegoers, Ingmar Bergman's film "Wild Strawberries" received very high ratings. 71% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film with scores from 8 to 10, and 21% of users gave the film the highest score - "ten". Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of the film "Wild Strawberries" according to FilmGourmand was 10,247, thanks to which it took 31st Rank in the Golden Thousand.
In addition to the aforementioned films "Fanny and Alexander" and "Wild Strawberries", the Golden Thousand includes 20 more films produced by Swedish cinema. Among them, in particular:
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4. Offret (The Sacrifice). Director Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986. Movie's Rating - 9,293; 106th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
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6. Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring). Director Ingmar Bergman, 1960. Movie's Rating - 9,254; 116th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
7. Ansiktet (The Magician). Director Ingmar Bergman, 1958. Movie's Rating - 9,145; 136th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
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9. Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata). Director Ingmar Bergman, 1978. Movie's Rating - 8,995; 168th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
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