One Summer of Happiness (1951)
The young high school graduate Göran and the 17-year-old Kerstin get to know each other on the estate of Göran's uncle Persson and fall in love. But their relationship is watched suspiciously by the jammed adult world. While Persson has an understanding of the youth, Kerstin's parents and the pastor of the village rant against the alleged immorality of the young people. Despite all the malice, Göran and Kerstin decide for their love. But this love should last only one summer.
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Sick Product of a Sick System
Pretty Good
People are voting emotionally.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
This charming film should be restored and reissued. Its story line is simple, perhaps a bit trite. However, the central character Kerstin presents us with a rare glimpse of the blossoming of youth, emerging from innocence to passion to tragedy in a short season. No spectacular acting here, but one senses a freshness and spontaneity rarely grasped in low budget productions. No specific message here, other than raw warmth followed by pain and despair. Too bad Ulla was not discovered and well directed later on! We missed a great actress. (We named our first daughter after her character long before she was born!)
This is a simple "boy meets girl" "parents/adults don't understand us" film, but a very well done one. Ulla Jacobsson is captivating in the lead. I like her performance here better than in "Smiles of a Summer Night", although the latter is the better film. I also found "One Summer of Happiness" interesting for what it said about post-war Sweden. Well done.
This film was upon it´s release subject to much attention, not only in Sweden, but across most of Europe. This perhaps not due to any particular cineastic greatness but rather the rather candid nude swimming scene (perhaps the first in a non-adult feature film making it past the scissors of the censors) which sparked somewhat of an outcry amongst morality watchdogs.In short, this film acted as sort of a springbord for a new wave of filmmaking in nothern Europe.
I saw this movie the first time yesterday. I´ve had the tape for about two years, but I was not so interested in it. But now I´m very glad about having watched it, because it is a great, old-fashioned love story containing a warm kind of romance, you cannot find in actual movies. The story is quite simple: student from the city falls in love with girl from the country. She is not allowed to love him, but nevertheless they do...The scene, showing both naked taking a bath in a beautiful swedish lake, caused 1951 a scandal. Funny, about what harmless stuff people got annoyed in former times... 9/10