Juventude

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.

On the face of it, "Summer Interlude" is a fairly straightforward narrative; a ballerina (Marie, masterfully played by Maj-Britt Nilsson) in her late 20s (so in the ballet world, nearing the end of her career) seems detached from the world. She lives with a fairly stolid and boring tabloid journalist (David, in a wonderfully understated performance from Alf Kjellin), but doesn't seem terribly invested in their relationship. On the day of the dress rehearsal before opening night, a package arrives containing a journal - she opens the journal, and suddenly she feels emotion again - as if part of an interior wall is starting to crack. She takes a ferry out to an island where she spent her childhood summers, and flashes back to a summer romance that occurred there in her teenage years - and thus a complex, beautiful, and tragic story begins.

This is considered by most - including the Swedish master himself - to be Bergman's first mature film as a director, and with good reason. His previous offerings, while showing glimpses of the promises he would deliver on later in his career, were hampered by his limp, flawed male protagonists. This is the first film in which he explores the female as protagonist, a trope which would continue through most of his career, and it's clear that he has a much better grasp on the female psyche than on the male - with one notable exception ("The Seventh Seal"), his male protagonists often come off as variants of the director himself. Marie is at once strong, uninhibited, and vulnerable as a young woman, and Nilsson plays this role sublimely. As a mature ballerina, she has the appearance of strength that comes from a deadening of the emotions, rather inhibited, and invulnerable - a woman behind a wall she was forced or persuaded to build around herself. Nilsson also takes on this role masterfully, showing the versatility and virtuosity of an actress whose career peaked far too early.

The male lead, and Marie's love interest, is Birger Malmsten as Henrik - also wonderfully played as (by this point "yet another") incarnation of young Bergman himself. But unlike the male leads of previous films, Henrik is played with such an earnest innocence and naiveté that we can't help but buy into this wonderful performance. This isn't the director subtly displaying a sense of self-loathing, but rather, baring his soul through his marvelous script and direction. The ancillary roles are all excellent, as can be expected from actors working under Bergman. Stig Olin is particularly fantastic as the master of the ballet company. Kjellin's "regular guy" is believable in both his distance and his frustration, and lascivious "Uncle" Erland (Georg Funkquist) is delightfully seedy and erudite. Gunnar Olsson - the obligatory Bergman priest - is a very minor character, but fits perfectly into the few scenes he appears in. The rest of the supporting cast is fantastic.

As one would expect from a Bergman film - especially an early collaboration with his first significant cinematographer, Gunnar Fischer, and frequent editor Oscar Rosander - the visuals are stunning. I won't get over-technical here, but a wonderful mix of slow-fades, natural summer lighting, and exceptional composition make this a visual gem. Working on-location - a rarity for Bergman at this point in his career - he masterfully captures the feel of a short (6-8 week) Swedish summer, from the cuckoo that officially announces the start of summer to the owl that signals its approaching end. The lighting is masterfully achieved; contrast the scene when Marie first bumps into Henrik on the island to that where she walks down the hospital corridor. Every scene - including the outdoor ones, which are far more difficult - are perfectly focused and use exactly the right perspective.

Thematically, "Summer Interlude" is almost a crystal ball we can stare into to see the marvelous things the director would do in the future. Love, and its reverse. Life, and its reverse. The questioning of god's existence, relevance, and goodness. This is one of the first Bergman films to significantly use the mirror as a thematic element, in two back-to-back scenes, near the end of the film - this theme would be repeated in many future films, from the shattered mirror in "The Magician" to the dual mirrors in "Cries and Whispers", this would be a leitmotif that Bergman would employ time and time again. There is a chess scene in "Summer Interlude" that would directly evoke that of "The Seventh Seal" had the former not been shot 5 years before the latter. The distance between Marie and David tangibly feels like the silence between the sisters in "The Silence".

The overall TL;DR synopsis: This is a beautifully shot, wonderfully acted portrayal of young love that evokes Bergman's recurring themes of love, loss, the distance that necessarily exists between people, the silence of god, self-reflection, and the existentialist notion that we might as well move forward because otherwise, all we do is wait for Godot. The first masterpiece of a director I consider second only to Tarkovsky, and easily in my top 10 of his films - which is saying a lot. A solid 10/10.

Marie has re-opened a door, to a box she cast into before, a broken love heart, that's been shattered, torn apart, then fractured upon a treacherous, cruel shore.

Henrik had found his true love, without persuasion or an encouraging shove, a joyous summer together, feeling light as a feather, until drawn by the clouds up above.

Waffle ye might about the aesthetic of great cinema but it's the story that holds the roof on, ably assisted in equal part by great performances and incredibly genuine and believable dialogue - the aesthetic is the cherry on the cake, and this is an outstanding piece of storytelling.

While waiting for the night rehearsal of the ballet Swan Lake, the lonely twenty-eight year-old ballerina Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) receives a diary through the mail. She travels by ferry to an island nearby Stockholm, where she recalls her first love Henrik (Birger Malmsten). Thirteen years ago, while traveling to spend her summer vacation with her aunt Elisabeth (Renée Björling) and her uncle Erland (Georg Funkquist), Marie meets Henrik in the ferry and sooner they fall in love for each other. They spend summer vacation together when a tragedy separates them and Marie builds a wall affecting her sentimental life.

"Sommarlek" is a simple little film of the great director Ingmar Bergman in the beginning of his successful career. The plot discloses through flashbacks a tragic and timeless love story affecting the life of the lead character that builds a wall to protect her sentiments and loses her innocence with her corrupt uncle. The cinematography, landscapes, sceneries and camera work are awesome, using magnificent locations and unusual angles to shot the movie. Maj-Britt Nilsson and Birger Malmsten have great performances in this beautiful and melancholic film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Juventude" ("Youth")

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 !!