Monika et le désir

A sad tale of two lovers who meet in a high emotional state and break up because the lady, Monika becomes bored with the relationship. About the highs and lows of love. Very beautiful in depicting the relationship between Harry and Monika. Its easy to sympathize with Harry because no matter how hard he tries to make Monika happy he always seems to fail. It was during the filming of this movie that Ingmar Bergman left his wife for the actress, Harriet Andersson(an act which he would regret and influence him for the rest of his career). This act would greatly influence Wild Strawberries(1957), Persona(1966), The Touch(1971), Cries & Whispers(1972), and would inspire the Liv Ullman film, Faithless. The director delivers a film of powerful emotions and raw feelings. Harriet Andersson is magnificent as the title character. Sommaren Med Monika/Monika(1953) is the first of many great motion pictures for the legendary filmmaker and visual poet, Ingmar Bergman.

He wasn't always the old glum maestro. Although the young lovers in "Summer with Monika" might have fitted quite easily into a British Kitchen Sink film, this early Bergman is less grim than we later came to expect and although minor, this film has much to admire; it actually reminded me a bit of "A Kind of Loving".

A young Harriet Andersson is Monika and Lars Ekborg is Harry, the boy who loves her enough to want to spend a lot longer than just the summer with her. You might say that for Bergman this is a very simple picture filled with very simple people but Bergman treats them with a fair degree of sympathy. Monika may be just a little tart or simply a young woman trapped in an early marriage while Harry is always seen as trying to do the decent thing and the ending, if not exactly upbeat, is less of a Bergman downer than usual. No masterpiece, then, but an essential part of the canon nevertheless.

Monika feels trapped, in despair, her future is bleak and laid bare, she needs to break free, escape, run and flee, with a boy who is willing to care.

Harry is a boy that can care, spends his days wishing he was elsewhere, now he's met a nice girl, and they're off for a whirl, a summer like no other can compare.

To love, through a long hot summer, without a care or a bother, just to be in the arms of each other, to smother, enrapture and cover - what could possibly go wrong! Monika and Harry find the inevitable fork in the road, where habit and repetition branch from joy and satisfaction, and sacrifice will not recompense or suffice, at least for one.

Contains that look that says it all.

It is a very sensitive and solid story about love and loss. It fascinates you from the beginning, first of all because of the beauty of the images and then by the credibility of the characters. There's also plenty of small human details which together make a whole masterpiece (The moment that Monika turns and stares to the camera is one of them). Strangely enough, this movie is never mentioned among the best made by Bergman. But it is a great movie.

Ingmar Bergman's Monika (Summer with Monika) (1953) is the story of two Stockholm teenagers, stock boy Harry (Lars Ekborg) and voluptuous, impulsive Monika (Harriet Andersson), who meet and fall in love and run away for a summer on a motorboat on the Stockholm archipelago escaping from work and all responsibility. Monika becomes pregnant and they return to the city and marry – but things turn bad. This first powerful feature by the Swedish master is simple and sweet but nonetheless rich in emotional wrenching events. The film, which depicts teenage unwed sex, was shockingly sensual for its time. In 2006 the intensity of Harriet Andersson's uninhibited performance is still impressive and this story is just as heartbreaking as it was over half a century ago.

Presented as part of the Janus Films sidebar of the 2006 New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center in another gorgeous pristine-looking new print with a rich black and white tonal range that may look better than the original did.