Sommarlek (1951)
Summer Interlude, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1951
Print source: KAVI, Kansallinen audiovisuaalinen instituutti
(National Audiovisual Institute), Helsinki
Running time: 96 minutes
About the print
The Finnish Film Archive (Suomen elokuva-arkisto), now known as KAVI, acquired this nitrate print from the film’s Finnish distributor Adams Filmi Oy in 1986. It was screened in an archival setting at the Orion theater in Helsinki in 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, and 2003. It displays traces of use (moderate scratching), but still looks striking. Shrinkage: 1%
About the film
“From Sweden comes a picture lovely in everything but its title, the Colony’s Illicit Interlude. This beautifully gentle remembrance of things’ past merits a worthier handle as well as your attention. The original title, Sommarlek, literally ‘Summer Play,’ is infinitely truer to the tone. . . . Skillfully told in two levels of time, the story also makes the point that of all the artists, the ballet dancer is the least rewarded for the most work.”
– Washington Post and Times Herald, December 25, 1954
“This beautifully realized recount . . . gives a subtle and sensitive presentation of a strange, youthful love affair, no more meriting the pornographic word “illicit” than it deserves to be labeled smut. For the most part, Director Ingmar Bergman simply traces in clean, poetic terms the dancer’s vivid recollections of a wonderful summer she spent in the home of an aunt and uncle by a beautiful Swedish lake and of the passionate discovery and fulfillment of love with the youth, who later died. It is an idyll that evolves in lovely glimpses of the two young people swimming at dawn, running along rocky ledges, pressing kisses beneath the trees and lying in blissful contentment under the white-clouded dome of the sky.”
– Bosley Crowther, New York Times, October 27, 1954
“Some of the action and nuances of dialogue are a bit daring by American movie standards, but the whole thing is played in such a frank and open-hearted manner that it never gives offense.”
– Otis L. Guernsey, New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1954