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It is an axiom of psychoanalysis that something like a truth can emerge when extant or accepted knowledge is suspended, when the answers given to questions of identity and desire become unsettled, permitting us to ask them anew. Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries stages in an exemplary way this dynamic in the figure of its protagonist Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström), a seventy-eight year old professor who, over the course of a single day, will be made by Bergman to confront the losses that he has encrypted from his past and the price he has paid for such encryption—his own psychic deadening.
From his well-ordered, book-filled study, Isak delivers the film's opening voice-over, wherein he confesses to a pedantry that characterizes and visually frames the introduction he makes to the viewer:
In our relations with other people, we mainly discuss and evaluate their character and their behavior. This is why I have withdrawn from nearly all so-called relations. This has made my old age rather lonely. My life has been full of hard work, and I am grateful. It began as toil for bread and butter and ended in a love of science. I have a son, also a doctor, who lives in Lund. He has been married for many years. They have no children. My old mother is still alive and is very active, in spite of her age. My wife Karin has been dead for many years. I am lucky in having a good housekeeper. Perhaps I should add that I am an old pedant, which at times has been rather trying for myself and those around me.1
On their surface, Isak's comments are simple and sympathetic enough: wanting to avoid the extent to which human relationships