SEPTEMBER 8, 2021 – While hiking recently on our “back 40” I encountered a patch of wild strawberries. It reminded me of Wild Strawberries by famous Swedish filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman.
I first “experienced” Bergman’s films while I was a student at Interlochen Arts Academy—by name and curricula, an “artsy-fartsy” establishment. It was attended by many students who qualified as geniuses. I wasn’t among them.
Nevertheless, in certain contexts I pretended, and the Bergman film festival was one such occasion. Though for most of the films I had no idea what was happening, my mere attendance might be viewed (I’d hoped) as a mark of sophistication—if I didn’t open my mouth. Back at the dorm, I’d even suffer through post-screening rap sessions—nodding and raising my left eyebrow throughout the meandering explications by “geniuses.”
Jump to the start of my freshman year of college. My roommate, Jim, was from a tiny town in Maine and first member of his family to attend college—meaning, he took it seriously, worked hard, and shone as a scholar. But in my then narrow view of the world, he was a rustic.
After all, he talked with an extreme Maine accent. Moreover, after hearing me mention our family’s “cabin,” he asked questions about it, always referring to it as our “camp.” I kept reminding him that it was a cabin with walls, a roof, a stone fireplace, and running water, and electricity—not a “camp” (consisting of a campfire outside a tent). “Yeah, like I said,” Jim would say, “your camp.” His insistence reinforced my impression of him as a bumpkin.
Only later when fellow students who were scions of “old money” referred to their grand, family lodges in the Adirondacks or Bar Harbor as “camps” was I fully schooled in regional nomenclature.
One evening before classes commenced, on-campus entertainment included a screening of Wild Strawberries. It was among the Bergman films that had confused me royally back at Interlochen. I figured that since now I was a college student—albeit without a single class under my belt—the film might convey more meaning. I didn’t want to attend alone, however, so I told Jim he should go too.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“You’ll see,” I lied.
With nothing else to do, he said, “Okay, what the heck.”
Not far into the film, I realized that being a “college man” wasn’t helping. I also realized that the whisperer behind us who said, “I like the symbolism of the rain on the windshield juxtaposed to the recalcitrant wiper” was full of himself.
Jim viewed the movie patiently to the bitter end. When the lights came on, so did chatter by people full of themselves, as we shuffled toward the exits.
Then, with the honesty of a fresh breeze off the lake at our cabin, Jim blurted out, “I had no idea what was going on!”
Regrettably, I didn’t have the courage to say, “Me neither,” until we were beyond earshot of the people full of themselves.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
