PlatinumRead
Just so...so bad
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Stephanie
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Kirpianuscus
It seems be not a Bergman. but, maybe, except the language, one of social British drama from "50. it is not a question about death, meanings, relations. but a portrait of a couple. it is not provocative. only a simple story, with admirable cinematography, about people and choices and their price. a portrait of an age more than of characters. beautiful for each detail. impressive for the expected end. powerfull for splendid performance of Harriet Andersson. and for sensitive work of Lars Ekborg. a film of Stockholm. simple, realistic, touching and bitter. interesting for Ingmar Bergman art evolution but, in same measure, for the use of a strange beauty of people and places.
avik-basu1889
For a film which was released in 1953, 'Summer with Monika' has some scenes that are pretty risqué. Bergman uses some eroticism to decorate the intensity of the young love that blossoms between Monika and Harry. This is at its core a coming-of-age film, specially from Harry's point of view. Two youngsters of contrasting attitudes, contrasting backgrounds and contrasting aspirations get attracted to each other and we witness their innocent, yet intensely passionate love affair. They leave the civilisation of the city behind and start exploring life in a new way together in the midst of the wilderness of the country isolated from the general population.However as it invariably happens, life refuses to allow these youngsters an extended spell of joy and somewhat inevitably, worldly realism starts to eat into romanticism. But as happens with every unhappy reality, this proves to be a learning experience for Harry and it ends up learning something about himself, about others and about life. Some viewers might opine that Bergman goes a little overboard and somewhat vilifies Monika a bit too much, but I think it is a depiction of the reality that awaits everyone who embarks on a journey which requires maturity while still being immature.'Summer with Monika' includes some of the quintessential Bergman elements like long takes, extended extreme close-ups to underline internal conflict or emotional shift, lingering shots of nature, symbolism, etc. However the metaphors get a bit too on-the-nose at times here. Specially the character of Lelle appears abruptly on multiple occasions without any logic, just to act as a metaphor which is somewhat off-putting.Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg are really good as Monika and Harry respectively. They make their characters as well as their relationship believable and passionate which makes us root for the 'happily ever-after'.'Summer with Monika' is certainly not one of Bergman's best films. But it does contain some of the masterful touches that Bergman would polish even further to make numerous masterpieces. But even then, I think 'Summer with Monika' deserves to be seen as an early piece of work from one of the masters that has something to say about the brutality of life.
Andres-Camara
The actors are great, the majority, but above all the two protagonists. The question is whether this is enough to keep the movie. I think it has several speeds and that is the worst thing I have. Many times in the summer time, it expands on descriptive planes, the exit and entrance, and then the end of the film tells the story of a couple, how he solves his life, how she is fed up and changes her life, And everything at full speed.If that marks very well as was the world at that time, although I have my doubts that the girls were like that, not even in Sweden.But I've put a five because although I do not like the film in the end but I think it's done in earnest and pretends to tell something, but it's boring me a lot.Spoiler: I think the best thing about the film after thinking a lot is the title. I thought because I would be serious and I understand that it is because after all I only spent that time with her.Although the plane when she dresses and is going to go and flirt and have fun is great. The rest of the movie, I do not like almost anything like it's shot. I do not usually like Ingmar Bergman rolling and this was not going to be less. Saving some loose plane I believe it rather because it wants to make general plans that by vision in front of the camera.
IMDBcinephile
This is Bergman at his most sublime. He is self-aware again when he makes Monika utter "You're like a film, Harry" (paraphrased) - and this is the point where I knew "Summer of Monika" was going to be a great film. I was a little disheartened when I was watching "Secrets of Women" (I'm not a big fan of the movie); I did get enraptured by "Smiles of a Summer's Night" but it still wasn't him at his most adroit.Now, finally getting to watch this movie reminded me how amazing he was. The framing, the chiaroscuro lighting and all based on the study of what seems like two pariahs in their own society; Monika, who works as a grocer doing menial tasks to earn a living and Harry who works also, but who has a Dad who has ailments and a Mother who deceased when he was 8. Monika feels frightened in her own kinship and Harry is ready to go adrift into the Summer. They both become one, and then we segue into their departure to another place. "If they want to keep us apart, then we'll leave them" as Monika says, proving that we're still watching adolescents who want to free them selves from the frustration of conformity. Monika was abused by her Father and made an instinctive decision to go with him to the other side. As the movie goes on consecutively, we're then treated with the views beyond the sea. The cinematography is a marvel, as we see from the POV shots which set up the beauty. I always think that the set up of window dressing, will give us plenty of time to become accustomed to the life akin to turbulence and anguish; in the ending, he reminisces on this, when he mirrors into himself parallel into his past... he is unfortunately occupied with the Baby, and now sees nothing of prudence to look forward to.It is a deep, darkening and rather imbued experience through the struggles mixed between the life going through swimmingly. Bergman also gives us a sense of a celestial body with the shots of the sky, which seem very emblematic, although I'm not sure what of. It is one of those excursions that subjects you to a fresher form of the bittersweet. The closeups are not made from the caricatures of their characters - when Harry gets a closeup shot he contorts his face with more emotion, and a real sense of a saturnine guy, who was tamed by a Woman, and is now toiled with the trouble of premature adulthood. It doesn't preach it, but it makes you feel it; he becomes like her Father eventually and it then veers away from the path that we can all aspire for... the feeling of waves swaying back and forth and the freedom to do whatever you want. As Monika says "I don't ever want to go away from there" (paraphrasing), and yes, it is just one of those woes. "Summer with Monika" is not a cutesy, rom-com like you would be used to it. It is a Ingmar Bergman romance - watch his other movies like "Summer Interlude", "Through a Glass, Darkly" and "Persona" and then watch this movie that was made 2 years after "Summer Interlude" and predates the latter; you will be seeing a spectacle and a truth, perfection is now nonsense. Apart from the perfections of this one man's fable.
