SUMMER WITH MONIKA

Sweden, 1953, 96 minutes, Black and white.
Harriet Andersson, Lars Ekborg.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Summer with Monika is comparatively early Ingmar Bergman material. He was soon to move into heavier films with The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries which launched him into an international career which lasted almost fifty years. He made such classics as The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly (with Harriet Andersson), Winter Lights, The Silence, Cries and Whispers (again with Harriet Andersson), Best Intentions, Fanny and Alexander, Scenes of a Marriage and its thirty-years-after sequel, Saraband, his last film in 2003.

This film is straightforward: a young workman in a glass factory becomes besotted with a young seventeen-year-old girl, Monika. She is the lively character. They spend summer on an island, she becomes pregnant. He wants to settle down and marry. She is a rebel and wants the high life. The relationship cannot survive this.

The film is made in a straightforward style, naturalistic, emphasis on the locations and atmosphere. However, it is an anticipation of the career that Bergman was to have.

1. The work of Ingmar Bergman and this film in his career? Anticipating of later themes?

2. Scandinavian settings, black and white photography, musical score?

3. A smaller drama but indicating a growing scope in Bergman’s films? His cast?

4. How did the weather serve ad a symbol in the film? The eagerness of Spring, the Summer itself with Monica and its happiness. the Autumn and the Winter of discontent? The way that the seasons wore filmed?

5. The presentation of the two characters of the two characters and their typical meeting? How well did they get to know one another?

6. The quality of the relationship between Monica and Harry? With whom did the audience identify? Where were audience sympathies? Did the audience learn the characters of these two people?

7. The focus on Monica - the quality of Harriet Anderson’s performance, her youth, friendliness, her work, her pushiness towards Harry, her smoking, emotional response to the film, petting at Harry's home? The picture of Monica at her home, her self-centredness, her parents’ joy, the jubilee, the reasons for her leaving home? Her imposing herself on Harry and drawing on his love? On the boat, the sexual fulfilment? Her use of money, buying dresses? Her adolescent and her promise of fidelity forever? Why was the boat trip so happy, an escape from reality, a sunny holiday? The sequence of the dancing, by themselves? The influence of Leila and the fight, and his destruction of the boat and their things? This counterbalanced with the scene of their happiness and their learning to dance? Monica’s swim, her fresh nudity and the attraction for Harry? The happiness and the conception of the baby? The growing disillusionment after Lelle's intervention? The length of summer? Her petulance with Harry, the incident with the Mushrooms, the importance of her stealing the food and her disagreeable reaction to people's kindness? The return home and its solemnness? What had happened to Monica? The hastiness of the marriage? How happy was Monica in giving birth to the baby, the niceness of it all, the hospital? Life at home and her slovenliness? Her not waking, her complaints about the aunt and money? What was the reason for her infidelity? Her selfish response when caught? Her self pitying and going? Why did she go and what was her future? The importance of the sequence where she looks for so long at the audience? Audience response to this? How much insight into a girl and into a woman did this performance give?

8. How interesting a character was Harry? Audience sympathy for him? The quality of his work, being persecuted at work, his response to the workers? His shyness,, relationship with his father? Being pushed by Monica, petting her, falling in love with her? The quality of his help, his leaving his job, his happiness in opting out and holidaying with Monica? Why was he so happy? Relishing the trip?

9. The dance, the intervention with Leila and the fight preparation of this earlier? Feeling victimised – when Monica grew sullen? Not going to Rob with her? The importance of the marriage and the birth to her? The dawning of a new career in study? His care and concern for the baby? How important was the scene of his discovery of Monica’s infidelity? The impact on him? The sadness? The importance of the film ending with Harry and the baby looking into the mirror? What was being said in summary of Harry's life so far? The insight into a earnest young man and his relationship with a willful girl?

10. The film’s presentation of social pressures, the quality of work, money, parents, the quality of homes, the influence of the aunt, people in general, the contrast with the people who were stolen from?

11. What did the film have to say about the reality of love and marriage? What is love?

12. The film's comments on responsibility? Monica as irresponsible, Harry’s sense of responsibility?

13. What kind of picture of adolescence and growing up did this film give? How realistic, optimistic, pessimistic?

14. Was this obviously an Ingmar Bergman film? Why?