Un'estate d'amore

Bergman's films are always interesting to look at, and this one is no exception. Some of the film's best visuals include a bleak white sky that only a black silhouette of the protagonist can be made out walking against, and a couple of excellent montages: one being the opening shots of slight movements in clouds, in a river and of rubbish on a footpath; the other being a montage of steam, skies and water as a boat sails along. Bergman also pays a lot of attention to sound here too, and in particular there is something rhythmic about the chugging boat sounds, and these sounds can be heard at times throughout the film even when the boat is not visible on screen. Silence, such as at the doctor's office, is also distributed well throughout.

The directing work in this early Bergman film is on par with some of his best direction. His screenplay is however well below par. It is one of his least challenging scripts - a simple tale of love between two young persons with none of the philosophy or analysis about how human beings function that make most of his films so interesting. It is well made, but often nothing more than sentimental fluff. The stop animation work is an awkward inclusion too and the film is full of unimportant events, such as the ups and downs of the ballet, that really have absolutely nothing to do with the story at hand. It is not one of Bergman's best films by far, but still a good sign of things to come from him, and fairly pleasant viewing. It is sort of similar to 'Wild Strawberries', and therefore it is rather amusing to hear the main character ask her lover whether he wants to pick some wild strawberries with her!

"Sommarlek" (literal translation: "summer play" or "summer frolic") is seen by many as the true beginning of director Ingmar Bergman's career. Abandoning his traditional, often unlikeable, male protagonists of his earlier efforts, in this film he casts a female lead to act out a story from his own youth. It was a brilliant maneuver that proved to be a huge, career-defining success as Bergman was now able to explore more sensitivity and sentimentality, not to mention aesthetic beauty, through the female viewpoint. And the actress herself, Maj-Britt Nilsson, does an amazing job of covering the entire spectrum of joy and despair.

The story begins on the stage of a ballet rehearsal, the night before the big show of Swan Lake. Our heroine "Marie" (Maj-Britt Nilsson) is 38 years old which in ballet terms is practically in the grave. Certainly in terms of emotion she is presented as almost a preserved corpse, beautiful but utterly drained of life. An accident shuts down rehearsal and she leaves to go home but takes an unexpected detour on a boat which takes her to an idyllic little island where she spent a summer of her youth 13 years prior.

This is where the magic of Maj-Britt Nilsson's acting shows itself. The youthful "Marie" is so thoroughly playful, happy and childish that I literally had to pause the film to check if it was really the same actress. It is. And immediately the suspense is set: how does such a happy-go-lucky young girl turn out to be the jaded painted relic we saw on the ballet stage?

What follows is a love story that's almost ridiculous in its perfection, but that's the point. As Marie says, it feels like being inside a soap bubble. Bergman and his filming crew made excellent use of the sights of summer (even though the typical Swedish summer is barely 2-3 weeks long) to convey a fantasy in the natural world.

Ultimately the audience knows it must somehow return to the dark stage of the present, and so psychologically this cute love story has the air of a mystery all the way through. This is my favorite part of the film, the way it's implied that the love story will end, and thus there's no need for contrived conflicts and cartoonish peril. Yes, there are shadows of malice but these shadows are subtle. The screech of an owl (announcing the impending end of summer) accompanied by Marie's sudden inexplicable terror, and a shift in cinematography to a darker, more sinister look-this is the kind of subtle, artistic foreshadowing I'm talking about.

In the last part of the movie there are some excellent monologues, all done in the quiet darkness of Marie's dressing room. Certain lines are so poetic you'll want to memorize them, such as "It's like being a painted doll on strings. If you cry, the paint runs..." And to me that's where the film, and Maj-Britt Nilsson, really deliver. The last line (which I won't ruin!) ends on a cryptic note which makes you want to watch the whole film again.

"Sommarlek" is a great film, not just as a historical marker for Bergman's career but as a standalone work of cinema. I would compare it to the Max Ophuls masterpiece which would come 4 years later, "Lola Montès" (1955). Both films give us a lavish epic focusing on a caged woman facing the memory her wild & free past, but in this case the "lavish epic" is wonderfully contained on a tiny island over a few fleeting weeks of summer.

Much of this early Ingmar Bergman film is an elaborate flashback of the event indicated in the title. An accomplished ballerina reflects on a love affair of her youth. They meet and soon are lovers (they both admit that up to this point they have never kissed another before but it doesn't take long before they're rolling in the hay) and we get nearly overkill sequences of hackneyed depictions of exhilarating young love : running on the beach, jumping into each other's arms, copious gropings, falling over each other with utter joy, endless kissing and hugging, excited expressions of mutual endearment ; it becomes withering after a while. Despite some light foreshadowing of something else to come, I began to see the movie as an apprentice effort by this great master as he improvises an innocuous love affair as a sheer movie making exercise.

The recollection is cut short by tragedy and the story returns to the present. Everything changes and bleakness replaces happiness. Dark personal imprisonment replaces innocence and freedom. The story moves to conclusion with some interesting new characters and some trenchant dialogue. I'm no expert on Bergman but intuitively I wouldn't be surprised if the second half of this early movie might just be some of his best stuff. This is almost two movies in one. The ending might surprise.

Notes: 1) In the flashback, she has an uncle who fits, categorically, the definition of slime in the sense of preying on young girls. He wants to be her "protector." A conversation seems to indicate that something sordid has passed between them. "I shouldn't have let you touch me," she says. Is this literal or figurative? The relationship between them is not developed. The decadence of the remark is jarring. 2) In a somewhat humorous vein, the young lover says to her, "I love you so much I want to eat you up." She says, "Where would you start?" "I would start with your brains and work down to between your thighs. I have a cannibal friend who told me about this." Yike!

And thirdly, there are some lovely ballet sequences that are beautifully weaved into the narrative, including an instance near the finale which is quite telling (and moving). There is a wonderful scene when he barges in on her as she practices. The camera is stationed on the floor showing close ups from her knees to the floor as she fires away with some elaborate pyrotechnics of exquisite lower limb maneuvers of the art. Through this marvelous camera setting, he is visible across the room sitting in the background reproaching her for thinking more of her career than about him. The camera work there is inspired. This movie should be included in any discussion about ballet in cinema.

Certainly recommended and with an added caveat ; don't give up too early; do but hang awhile, it's worth it.

This is a film, quite simply, I went out to buy on video. I thought it was lovely -in its proper sense- and a nice change from the big man's subsequent, more serious projects. The film recaptures youth's giddy, carefree, brief love affairs ...and its comeuppance, its consequences in future life. Anyone who's been in love around that age will know it always remains within you, like a shameful secret, a cherished hurt ("ah, if only I had...") for a long, long time, no matter what turn things take, however successful one can become (the protagonist : a ballerina). Bergman was already showing his knowledge of human nature. ...Of course, the story (the first part of the film) doesn't meet a "happy ending". What can I say : lovely, and not least for the Swedish language !

PS-Recently, in a program on the history of exploitation (i.e. naughty films) and censorship in the US, it was revealed that quite a few scenes, showing the heroine skinny-dipping in the lake with not much on, were routinely added to this movie !!

I watched this movie and was transported, both in transports of delight, and mentally transported back to Sweden, where I had a brief but intense love-affair.

The scenes with the two young lovers, meeting and playing on the lake, with the little boat, with the dog, "Squabble", picking berries, were so finely drawn on screen, they could have been transcribed from my memories...

Cinema can be magic, and cinema like this can make one's life more wonder-filled.