Wild Strawberries

Varda does not explain much about MonaÆs motivations except to say that she was a discontented secretary who hated her boss, and left her structured life for that of a vagabond. Film critic Roger Ebert argues that Mona is blank, devoid of ambition. ôShe has gone on the road, not to make her fortune, but to drop out completely from all striving.ö

A work of fiction, Varda framed the movie in a documentary style with herself as narrator. The movie opens with the camera slowly moving through frozen vineyards and then moving in to a shot of the body of a dead young woman lying in a ditch. The storyline is then unfolded through flashbacks dealing with the final weeks of MonaÆs life.

The original English title of the film was Without A Roof and Beyond the Law, a title that more aptly explains MonaÆs choice, while Vagabond, the later title, has a ro

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to late. MonaÆs wandering is not shown as totally dark. There is a section when she comes out of her tent on a sunny morning, and smiles feeling the warmth of the sun. She also appears to be having a good time when she spends a couple of days in a chateau with an old countess, but this may just be due to the many glasses of brandy she shares with the countess. The audience does not know because MonaÆs interior life is a blank. Ultimately, darkness takes over completely and the audience sees Mona as an outcast of society, not a free spirit vagabond. She is more a lonely lost soul than a dropout in search of freedom. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living, and MonaÆs story seems an example of the truth of that statement. Ingmar BergmanÆs Professor Borg, however, is MonaÆs opposite. Wild Strawberries is entirely a movie about BorgÆs reflections on his life, and his attempt to understand himself, and why his successful life contains so many disappointments. Film historian David Cook calls the film beautiful and lyrical, ôconstructed around the dreams and memories as they assail the elderlyö (648). The 400-mile car trip he is taking from Stockholm to the University of Lund to receive an honorary doctorate affords h
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1385
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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