Touches You

Great Film overall

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Greetings from Lithuania."Wild Strawberries" (1957), created by a legendary Ingmar Bergman reflects on life, death, childhood and what it takes to achieve a lot in your life via carrier, but missing upon beautiful moments in your life and most important family - all this is seen trough the eyes on an old man. That said, this is a very easy movie to watch - its beautifully acted written and directed. Also while the themes i mentioned can sound hard, this movie is lighthearted and kinda makes you think after it ends about your life - where you are at this moment and that it shouldn't be to late to change it if you don't want to end up as this old man of whose carriers achievements appreciation comes not from a family, but a young unknown people with a heart.Overall, "Wild Strawberries" is a superbly involving, smart, moving movie that you will definitely can see and appreciate it. Great movie.

If you don't adore this film, you should (finally) go on and try to read a book ( as small as it is) from its first word to its last

The first time I saw this many years ago I wasn't particularly impressed. I couldn't see how it appeared on so many 'best films of all time' lists. I still can't. There's really very little here. An old man has a few wistful memories. Uh huh...and...? The main problem is that the old man is simply not worthy of interest. He has had a distinguished career as a doctor and is on the way to pick up an honorary degree. Are we supposed to sympathise with such a successful life? And, quite amazingly, his mother is still alive, a sprightly woman in her nineties. Life and death doesn't really come into context until both your parents have died (so I found), so the mere existence of this old woman undermines much of the poignancy the old man is supposed to be feeling. This women is even older - let's hear about her instead.Then we have the white-flannelled folk in the dacha about whom we learn more than we want to know but not enough to make them interesting. None of it was adding meaning or emotion or even an introspective feeling about life and death.There isn't even any sense that the old man is going to die any time soon - he looks good for another ten years or so. Nor does he come to any startling Scrooge-like conclusions of his own past. He is supposed to be crabby and antisocial but he doesn't appear that way at all - another thing that undermines the film's own intentions.And Bergman is guilty of using too-obvious metaphors again: the three young hitchhikers are so clearly intended to represent youthful devil-may-care that they are impossibly idealised and behave like no human beings you will ever come across in your lifetime - no more than cartoons.At best, it's a decent little chamber piece, but it's intellectually impoverished and misses it's own targets by a mile. I can't see anything great about it. Sorry Ingmar.

Grouchy, stubborn and egotistical Professor Isak Borg is a widowed 78- year-old physician who specialized in bacteriology. Before specializing he served as general practitioner in rural Sweden. He sets out on a long car ride from Stockholm to Lund to be awarded the degree of Doctor Jubilaris 50 years after he received his doctorate from Lund University. He is accompanied by his pregnant daughter-in-law Marianne who does not much like her father-in-law and is planning to separate from her husband, Evald, Isak's only son, who does not want her to have the baby, their first.During the trip, Isak is forced by nightmares, daydreams, old age and impending death to reevaluate his life. He meets a series of hitchhikers, each of whom sets off dreams or reveries into Borg's troubled past. The first group consists of two young men and their companion, a woman named Sara who is adored by both men. Sara is a double for the love of Isak's youth. The first group remains with him throughout his journey. Next Isak and Marianne pick up an embittered middle-aged couple, the Almans, whose vehicle has nearly collided with theirs. The pair exchanges such terrible vitriol and venom that Marianne stops the car and demands that they leave. The couple reminds Isak of his own unhappy marriage. In a dream sequence, Isak is asked by Sten Alman, now the examiner, to read "foreign" letters on the blackboard. He cannot. So, Alman reads it for him: "A doctor's first duty is to ask forgiveness," from which he concludes, "You are guilty of guilt."