Summer Interlude (1951)

 Ingmar Bergman's "Summer Interlude"


It's hard to pin down what's so special about Ingmar Bergman's 1951 film "Summer Interlude." It is considered by many film historians to be the first film which accentuates the 'Bergman style.' Asides to nature, deep-focused close-ups on faces, and a somber melancholy that permeates the whole film. These are all significant reasons why the film pulls you in and mesmerizes you like it did me. 

I'm still uncertain at just how this film resonated with me, aside from awe and wonder. There is a quiet joy that nestles closely to quiet sadness in this film. The film is about a ballet dancer who reminisces on a brief summer romance with a young man back when she was a teenager staying with her uncle over the summer. The reminiscent summer ends in tragedy and the pain is what caused her to create a thick, hardened shell around her heart and soul as an adult. When watching the film, I too reminisced on the innocence and frivolity of my youth and the emotionally distant and sheltered version my adult self has become. Despite not having the same circumstances as our protagonist, we can still connect to the emotional truth of the film all the same. 

To bring about this emotional truth, Bergman's camerawork is almost meditative. There are moments of pure nature that Bergman allows into the film. There are moments of pure intimacy with the characters, as Berman is unafraid of Dreyer-esque close-ups. There is also shadowy darkness that seeps through, filling the visual space and thereby the scenario with melancholy. Despite having already made 9 films before this, "Summer Interlude" was perhaps the first film you could actually point to having a distinct 'Bergman' style, along with his signature themes. As famed film critic Pauline Kael wrote, "many of the themes that Bergman later expanded are here: the artists who have lost their identities, the faces that have become masks, the mirrors that reflect death at work." 

All in all, "Summer Interlude" was the film that started Bergman's trajectory to becoming the master filmmaker we know him to be today. It's a film that reflects on lost summers of youthful joy and the preciousness with which we hold on to this joy, despite the mounting melancholy of our lives. 



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