Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Wordiezett So much average

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Christopher Culver For those who first discovered Ingmar Bergman's work through the internationally acclaimed masterpieces of the late 1950s, there can be a reluctance to go too far back in time before that. After all, weren't the Swedish director's earliest films journeyman efforts where he did not have much control over the filmmaking process, and he had not yet found his distinct style? I, at any rate, get a feeling like this from his 1952 picture "Summer with Monika". I was delighted however, to find that the even earlier "Summer Interlude" to be a strong film. While shot in 1950, it fully anticipates Bergman's mature career.As the film opens we are introduced to Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson), a successful ballerina in Stockholm who is however visibly unsatisfied and emotionally distant from those around her. As she takes a ferry out to the Stockholm archipelago, the film switches into flashback mode and we learn the whole story of what made her what she is. Thirteen years before, while still a student and on summer holiday at the family cottage, she had a brief fling with Henrik (Birger Malmsten). This was a romantic -- and very nearly sexual -- awakening for them both, and Bergman depicts it with all the wistfulness of an adult looking back on the heady days of youth, just like the film's protagonist. Yet summer does not last forever, and events move in a direction that prevents the two from staying together.As I said, this is already mature Bergman in some of its concerns: belief in God and dissatisfaction at God's silence, interpersonal relationships and the feeling that people wear a mask when dealing with others, and of course the fleeting nature of the bright and warm Nordic summer. I will not however call this one of Bergman's very greatest films. The ending, after we return to the present day from the flashback, feels wrong somehow, the rhythm suddenly jarring and Bergman's point inchoate.Yet overall this is a satisfying picture to sit through, and there are many details to appreciate. Nilsson's acting is ultra-coquettish, and the sexual frankness on display here is surprising; this is in fact more daring than "Summer with Monika", a film with a wider such reputation internationally. The supporting roles by Georg Funkquist and Renée Björling as middle-aged friends of Marie's family lend the film more depth; their failed marriage is a moving counterpoint to the heady passion of the young lovers.

Smoreni Zmaj Honestly, I have no idea why did I take this movie at all. After only few minutes I was at the edge of giving up o it. Movie is black and white, really slow, about ballerina and I'm allergic to ballet, and on top of it all it's Bergman who is known to be boring. I'm against prejudice, but mostly unaware how much I'm susceptible to it. Exactly what I specified as reasons to write off this movie as unwatchable makes it a masterpiece. You just have to relax, give over to it, reject pre-formed thoughts and enjoy art. The moment I stopped hating it movie enchanted me. After rehearsal is delayed for the evening, ballerina goes to stroll around nearby island where she spent summer as young girl and fell in love for the first time. She just visits spots from her past and remembers. Story is simple and slow, but strong and deep. Acting is unbelievably emotional. Camera and directing are fantastic. I felt that authors gave special attention and love to every frame. Every cadre is masterpiece of black and white photography. In last few decades life speeds up more and more and cinematography follows. Today's generations are trained to watch complicated thrillers, extreme sex and violence, cheap humor, sitcom romance and stories that move in speed of light. Film more and more becomes cheap entertainment without meaning. Movies like this one are here to remind us why is cinematography considered one of arts.9/10

gavin6942 While waiting for the night rehearsal of the ballet Swan Lake, the lonely twenty-eight year-old ballerina Marie receives a diary through the mail. She travels by ferry to an island nearby Stockholm, where she recalls her first love Henrik.Bergman later reflected, "For me Summer Interlude is one of my most important films. Even though to an outsider it may seem terribly passé, for me it isn't. This was my first film in which I felt I was functioning independently, with a style of my own, making a film all my own, with a particular appearance of its own, which no one could ape." Indeed, this is a landmark film for Bergman. We see his early use of "summer" as a recurring theme, his stark use of black and white that would define him for a generation... and even the use of "Swan Lake", which may prefigure his love of "Magic Flute" in some way. Bergman brought a visual style to film I have never seen elsewhere and never will. He is the master, and it all begins with "Summer Interlude".

Purnendu Dey (purnenduvianworld) The film starts & it ends; but it leaves the viewer fraught with amorous catharsis in the end. The scenes where the ballerina & her lover spend time in love-making are the purest specimens of love that can ever be found on screen. Their love bloom in such innocence & harmlessness that we find it hard to accept that a simple jump from a rock would stop the throbbing of Henrik's heart for ever & bring their love to an abrupt end. Thereafter, the way Marie volitionally builds a protective wall around herself to remain normal & the way it's blown up by a strange diary that she receives one day which forces her legs to trudge on her favourite land where she used to walk with Henrik hand in hand are portrayed with adept finesse.