Summer With Monika Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Summer With Monika 
Year: 1953
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Country: Sweden
Language: Swedish  

Ingmar Bergman is one of the most powerful directors to ever grace the screen. He has given us a career full of heartbreaking classics, all of which I intend to watch and review. So far I have personally reviewed Persona, Cries and Whispers, The Seventh Seal, Summer Interlude, Shame, The Virgin Spring, Fanny and Alexander and  Wild Strawberries, all of which received high praise. Summer With Monika is the most recent Bergman film I've watched, and it is quite astounding.

The main character Harry Lund (Lars Ekborg) is a nineteen year old young man who meets Monika (Harriet Andersson), a romantic, reckless and rebellious seventeen year old, and they fall in love. They leave their families and jobs in their small town, Harry gets his father's boat and they spend the summer together in an isolated island.However as time moves forward, their personalities clash.

Summer with Monika is definitely one of Bergman's finest achievements. It is a cautionary tale about the self destructive nature of escape into alternate states of mind or being seemingly cut off from the rest of the world; the troubled waters that the inability to deal with issues that need affronting lead onto. The inability to mature is ultimately a set back in this world. Not even the love between Harry and Monika can keep them together.

Some call this a pessimistic tale about love, I find this to be rather realistic. What happens when one person in a relationship matures and the other doesn't? Ultimately Summer With Monika is beautifully photographed by early Bergman collaborator Gunnar Fischer. Particularly during the boating scenes. The cinematography is breathtaking, perfectly capturing the freedom of young love and the outdoors, then portraying the isolation of a relationship gone wrong. It is a brilliantly written and wonderful character study.

In conclusion, while many won't feel that Summer With Monika is his best film and it certainly is not his most well known, it is certainly superb. Bergman never disappoints, he is surely a cinematic God. This is a film that can be watched over and over, I will definitely be buying the Criterion Collection Edition. Praise it! 5/5