Film Forum

(1957, Ingmar Bergman) A distinguished professor is driven by prickly daughter-in-law Ingrid Thulin (in her first Bergman role) to receive an honorary degree in Lund; along the way he returns in reverie to his youth, visits his aged mother, picks up hitchhiker Bibi Andersson – the image of his young love – along with a bickering couple, and undergoes a fantasy inquisition. The great director Victor Sjöström (age 78 and ailing) gives one of the screen’s legendary performances, including a luminous final close-up. Grand Prize, Berlin Film Festival. DCP. Approx. 92 min.