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From Amazon.co.uk
The film tells the story of a young couple, Harry (Lars Ekborg) and Monika (18-year-old Harriet Andersson, with whom Bergman would fall in love) stuck in lousy jobs in Stockholm. Harry is beset by parental responsibility--his mother died young and his father is ill--while Monika is fed up with her drunken, violent father. They escape in a motorboat and to spend a blissful summer on an island in the archipelago. Once Monika gets pregnant and they're forced to steal food, however, the idyll concludes and they return to Stockholm, where the relationship disintegrates. You realise that Monika, from a large and fractious family, yearns for escapism, while Harry, who has never known true family life, longs for domestic stability. It is he who is left holding the baby. But Bergman does not quite condemn Monika, giving her one of his best scenes: in a cafe, estranged from Harry, chatting up a stranger, she stares unwaveringly and directly to camera, as if defying us to judge her. Visually ravishing, this film would have a deep impact on French New Wave cinema.
On the DVD: Summer with Monika on disc offers a fine restoration of the original film, and includes notes from Phillip Strick who points out that the film is in part hymn of praise to Stockholm's beauty and was influenced by the documentary "City Symphonies" made during World War II. --David Stubbs
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Customer Reviews
I would recommend this film to anyone that has loved and lost. A moving and deeply personal film.
Based on the novel by Per Anders Fogelstrom, this has the themes and style that many of Bergman's subsequent works would have- a transcendental use of imagery verging on the magic, miserable relations between people and the existential nature of life and the obligatory decay that occurs with time...
Harriet Andersson's Monika is not dissimilar to other 'wild women' of the screen- Jeanne Moreau's Catherine in Jules et Jim and Beatrice Dalle in Betty Blue sprung to mind. The island holiday between the couple has that idealised quality of youth that people pang for and base whole careers on attempting to recapture- the end shows that change occurs and things can never be the same again.
I think this film is where Bergman came of age, and it has, for me, one of the most iconic images I have seen in cinema: Harriet Andersson running naked towards the sea. This is the most perfect image, one of innocence and beauty on a plain removed from the conventional (the beach is often seen as something like a dreamplain, if you're misreading Jung and gazing at Dali at the same time)- this is the moment that Lars Ekborg's character will try to recapture in a Proustian fashion (and fail to). A perfect moment in cinema.
It is great that Summer with Monika is now available on DVD, as I believe it to be a classic work and the ideal introduction to the world of Ingmar Bergman.
Harry, a put upon employee in a glassware factory, meets Monika, a put upon employee at the greengrocer's. Romance is stifled by the claustraphobic conditions of city dwelling, so they chuck their jobs and vanish to the islands on a little boat.
Beautiful summer interlude in which Bergman captures the fragile beauty of first physical love and tenderness. The inevitable pregnancy. Harry and Monika daydream about their future happiness.
Return to the city and kitchen sink grinding disillusionment. Their baby forever a reminder of that exquisite summer on the boat.
This film should be shown to all fifteen year olds, feckless or otherwise. It's a bit depressing, both for the dispiriting reality of urban drudgery, as well as for the sad reminder of our lost youth and promise, but well acted, directed and beautifully photohraphed.
A suitable, intelligent introduction to Bergman devoid of spiritual or existential angst. Who would resist summer with Monika, even if they knew the outcome?
second half goes further and explores the 'what if' of the summer
romance between teens; moving into parenthood, marriage, and
disillusionment.
The acting is excellent, and unlike 'Summer Interlude' these actors
look close to the naïve age they're playing.
The film's point of view sometimes felt a bit one sided to me with 'bad
girl' Monika, from a crude, poor family, less willing to extend herself
than her upper-class boyfriend Harry. Of course, along with being
selfish she is also the more complex and fascinating character,
especially as played by the young Harriet Andersson.
Some critics make the argument - with merit - that the film doesn't
judge Monika,the audience does. Indeed, it could be argued that the
film is meant to make us question our own judgment of a poor girl who
is brought up with dreams of marriage as a glamorous escape, and not
just a humdrum existence. It's not for nothing the heroine is obsessed
with Hollywood love stories.
Andersson's performance may be the first of the many hyper-real and
extremely complex characters in Bergman's body of work, transcending
'type' and moral judgment.
The film was beloved by the French New wave filmmakers, who saw in it's
complex attitude (and very brief nudity) a throwing off of the shackles
of conventional characters and storytelling.
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