Summer Interlude

Watch: Summer Interlude

Unrated

10/26/19541h 36m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ An intimate love story—frank, fresh, and delightful in its telling! ~

Overview:

During a brief summer vacation, a lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years earlier.

Director:

Ingmar Bergman

Status:

Released

Language:

Swedish

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

island
diary
ballet dancer
ballet
memory
tragic romance
summer romance

Cast

Maj-Britt Nilsson

~ as ~

Marie

Birger Malmsten

~ as ~

Henrik

Alf Kjellin

~ as ~

David Nyström

Annalisa Ericson

~ as ~

Kaj

Georg Funkquist

~ as ~

Uncle Erland

Stig Olin

~ as ~

Ballet instructor

Mimi Pollak

~ as ~

Mrs Calwagen

Renée Björling

~ as ~

Aunt Elisabeth

Gunnar Olsson

~ as ~

Priest

Julia Cæsar

~ as ~

Maja

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

C
CRCulver
Written 7 year(s) ago
8
For those who first discovered Ingmar Bergman's work through the internationally acclaimed masterpieces of the late 1950s, there can be a reluctance to go too far back in time before that. After all, weren't the Swedish director's earliest films journeyman efforts where he did not have much control over the filmmaking process, and he had not yet found his distinct style? I, at any rate, get a feeling like this from his 1952 picture "Summer with Monika". I was delighted however, to find that the even earlier "Summer Interlude" to be a strong film. While shot in 1950, it fully anticipates Bergman's mature career.

As the film opens we are introduced to Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson), a successful ballerina in Stockholm who is however visibly unsatisfied and emotionally distant from those around her. As she takes a ferry out to the Stockholm archipelago, the film switches into flashback mode and we learn the whole story of what made her what she is. Thirteen years before, while still a student and on summer holiday at the family cottage, she had a brief fling with Henrik (Birger Malmsten). This was a romantic -- and very nearly sexual -- awakening for them both, and Bergman depicts it with all the wistfulness of an adult looking back on the heady days of youth, just like the film's protagonist. Yet summer does not last forever, and events move in a direction that prevents the two from staying together.

As I said, this is already mature Bergman in some of its concerns: belief in God and dissatisfaction at God's silence, interpersonal relationships and the feeling that people wear a mask when dealing with others, and of course the fleeting nature of the bright and warm Nordic summer. I will not however call this one of Bergman's very greatest films. The ending, after we return to the present day from the flashback, feels wrong somehow, the rhythm suddenly jarring and Bergman's point inchoate.

Yet overall this is a satisfying picture to sit through, and there are many details to appreciate. Nilsson's acting is ultra-coquettish, and the sexual frankness on display here is surprising; this is in fact more daring than "Summer with Monika", a film with a wider such reputation internationally. The supporting roles by Georg Funkquist and Renée Björling as middle-aged friends of Marie's family lend the film more depth; their failed marriage is a moving counterpoint to the heady passion of the young lovers.