Summer Interlude (1951)

People are voting emotionally.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"Summer Interlude" is an exquisitely filmed movie. While it is in black & white, the cinematography and way the shots are framed is just striking and make the film well worth seeing. As for the movie itself, it's pretty much what most would expect from an Ingmar Bergman film....something that leaves you depressed and feeling that life has no meaning!!The film begins with Marie a veteran ballerina. When she receives an old diary, she begins to think back to her youth and her doomed relationship with an ultra-serious young man, Henrik. You see them enjoying each other and looking to the future...all the while you KNOW it cannot end well....and it doesn't. By the end, Marie has said that he hates God, that life has no meaning and she's essentially waiting to die...all a bit much for a 28 year-old woman.The overall film is naturally unpleasant. It has lovely moments but considering how it all plays out...well, let's just say it's NOT a movie that the clinically depressed should watch!! Worth seeing but not among Bergman's very best--mostly because although the film is shot so wonderfully, it's existential angst is tough to watch AND it made me laugh in the flashback scenes at a nearly 30 year-old actress is playing a girl of only 15!

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")

It's interesting to note that when scripting this film Bergman would not have been much older than his protagonist: the 28 year old Ballet dancer Marie. Marie is someone who has spent the majority of her adult life building a wall around herself, her primary purpose in this is protection against the ghosts of her past. Although, we suspect, the wall may not have fully achieved this aim, it has succeeded in preventing her from truly making contact with the world, and, those who love her from ever reaching her. This is represented physically in the difficulty her young lover (the journalist) has in penetrating the theatre foyer at the beginning of the film. One gets the sense that Marie is doomed to drift through life, forever looking backwards, over her shoulder. When an ex-lover's diary is mysteriously delivered to the theatre she is forced deeper into herself, to confront a past she has locked away for the last fifteen years. We are then presented with these memories that the diary provokes and this is when the film truly comes alive. ALIVE is the key word here as Bergman paints for us, in a way that so few other's are able, a vivid picture of the essence of young life and falling in love for the first time, stomach butterflies and all. Her relationship to Henrik, a older local boy she meets whilst staying with her aunt is depicted expertly in such a way that Bergman's dialogue dances, and his scripting skills truly shine. In this field, he must have been way ahead of many of his contemporaries: their personalities are quickly and efficiently drawn so as to be absolute, their teasing banter is playful, unpredictable and a joy to witness. There is a magical scene in which the two young lovers begin to pencil various characters from their lives upon a record sleeve. Unexpectedly (especially in a Bergman film!) these drawings spring into life re-enacting a comic version of the lives of their real counterparts. In terms of Bergman's filmography these scenes are unique in their lightheartedness. However, this IS a Bergman film and, as surely as autumn and winter must follow summer, the light must be balanced by an equal amount of dark.As in Wild Strawberries, the narrative structure unfolds in a series of flashbacks that masterfully deliver vital information in such an order that ensures their emotional impact. The ballet scenes are of note as they are shot with a beautiful quietude that reflects the understated nature of the whole film. 'Summer Interlude' seems to assert the importance of embracing the here and now, of venturing into the shadows to confront one's ghosts, and laying them to bare in the sun. The alternative, it seems, is not really living. This is not typical Bergman fare, it is not nerve shredding drama on an epic scale, nor is it a challenging psychological abstraction that pushes the medium of cinema. Rather this is a moving little tale of remembered intimacy: small, but perfectly formed.

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!