Wild Strawberries : Just awful, what don't I get?

I was delighted to see such high ratings for this movie but suffered through it. Sadly the subtitles were white (naturally) and seemed to fade into the white portions of the movie making it difficult to read, and they spoke so fast that I had to constantly rewind the dialogue and read it 2 or 3 times.Nonetheless i thought it was awful. Maybe I'm missing something? I was kinda expecting maybe there were supposed to be dream sequences (flashbacks) of him but where were they? Or was that actually him in both roles, watching a younger version of himself? Except, they people he was watching talked to him, didn't they? And I didn't understand the crash scene, the guy in the VW started talking about his wife hating Catholics or something. Anyhoozle I suffered through this, prolly took almost 3 hours to watch, thought it was just awful and I gave it a 3 rating.

There are dream sequences and reveries, in which he thinks about his past. Picking up the 3 young people causes him to think about when he was young, then the middle aged bickering couple caused him to think about his loveless marriage. As the day progresses he becomes a more sympathetic character, more open to others as he tries to come to terms with his way of interacting with others. Note how at the end of the movie his daughter in law expresses love for him; while at the beginning she seemed almost disdainful of him. She sees him more sympathetically.

But I actually like "Remains of the Day" better. I think it's a similar theme, but expressed in a more straightforward way. I found it more moving, though actually also more depressing.

With due respect if you didn't realize that there were multiple dream/flashback sequences when on more than one occasion he woke up after them or snapped out of a trance, then I'd suggest you weren't really watching the film closely enough to critique it at all, nevermind call it awful.