Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Pers Anderson Fogelström from his novel
1953/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#264 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Monika Eriksson: You’re different than the others. You’re just like someone in a film.[/box]
Gunnar Fischer provides some exquisite lighting to Bergman’s tale of young love and its eventual collision with reality.
Harry Lund (Lars Ekborg) is a dreamy 19-year-old who lives with his chronically ill widowed father and works as a delivery driver. His world is changed when he meets Monika Eriksson (Harriet Andersson). Monika comes from a chaotic working class household headed by her alcoholic father and filed with the shouts of numerous younger brothers and sisters. She clearly is far more experienced than Harry but loves him dearly for treating her better than the others.
Monika finally reaches the point where she cannot bear to return home and easily convinces Harry, whose father is again in the hospital, that they should run away. So the two commandeer the father’s boat and take off for one of the islands in the Swedish Archipelago. There follows an idyllic, blissful summer of love. Things take a more serious turn after Monika announces that she is pregnant, the food starts to run out, and the cold winds of autumn begin to blow.
The couple return to Stockholm and marry. Monika gives birth to little girl but has no feeling for her. Harry works with purpose for the first time and studies for an engineering exam in his off hours. But Monika just wants to have fun and the inevitable heartache follows.
This is a gorgeous, beautifully acted movie. Harriet Anderrson is not a real beauty but is perhaps the most sensual of any of Bergman’s women. Bergman and Andersson were on the verge of beginning an affair during the making of this picture and it shows in the loving exploration of her face and body. Recommended.
Clip
Original US trailer for “Monika – The Story of a Bad Girl”
I find it hilarious how this was marketed abroad, almost as soft-porn. It is so far from the point with the movie which is much more the clash of nature and instincts versus civilization and the demands of modern life.
The pictures in the archiepelago are magnificent.
Oh, how I miss the long days of summer in Finland! I only wish we had had our own island.