Summer with Monika (1953)

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Summer with Monika (1953) – I. Bergman

This was Ingmar Bergman’s first big international hit, primarily due to a nude scene by Harriet Andersson which led to the film being recut and distributed as exploitation fare in the US.  Although very tame by modern standards, the story of teenagers who escape their dreary lives to an island in the Swedish archipelago until she falls pregnant and they need to return to reality, was something not seen on American screens due to earlier censorship rules.  Bergman takes the simple plot and adds a lot of sensuality, not just via Andersson but through inserted shots of nature and the elements (credit due to cinematographer Gunnar Fischer).  He offers just enough background to his characters to allow a psychological reading of their personalities and decisions.  Monika (Andersson) is the neglected eldest daughter to an alcoholic father and a mother who has a number of little ones to look after and Harry (Lars Ekborg) is the only son to an ailing father (his mother passed away long ago).  As such, she is selfish and craves attention whereas he is more controlled and overly responsible.  She sparks the decision to flee the city to the islands which leads him to abruptly quit his job (which was already being affected by his being drawn into her orbit), but he is the one who knows when it is time to return to find a career to support her and the child to come.  Of course, this is at the end of the summer.  Thus, the escape to the island can be seen as a fantasy, an idyll quite separate from the otherwise grim real world marked by poverty and hard work -- another “summer interlude” (to reference the title of an earlier film). In the end, Monika herself may be a fantasy for Harry, a specific memory to hold onto that will haunt him far into the future. Bergman’s developing vision of life seems to involve darkness punctuated by isolated and fleeting moments of happiness (which we allow to linger with inevitable mixed feelings).