FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Ingmar Bergman - Smiles Of A Summer Night (engl. subt.)  

Adultery is a major theme in the films of Ingmar Bergman. Who reads his biography knows that it was probably also a private subject for the director who was married five times and also had affairs with his female stars. For example with Harriet Andersson. Bergman probably felt sorry for a lot of this and he worked through his feelings of guilt on film. I can hardly imagine him as a libertine, in any case. The idea of obligation, betrayal and guilt also characterizes Smiles Of A Summer Night. And the need to confess guilt and ask for forgiveness is great! If you read on in Bergman's biography, you will learn that lovers could also become lifelong friends. Is that forgiveness? Smiles Of A Summer Night is often depicted as a turning point in Bergman's work. It was by far his most expensive film until then and he probably ended the phase of his early films. That was 1955, and the comedy was also one of his greatest successes! Bergman joins the ranks of the most important European filmmakers. No kidding, the greatest of all! The film is about adultery and is - unusually for Bergman - staged as a light comedy. Almost a screwball comedy with lots of puns! Fredrik Engerman (Gunnar Björnstrand) lives together with his wife Anne (Ulla Jacobsson), his son Henrik (Björn Bjelfvenstam), who is also studying theology, and the maid Petra (Harriet Andersson), who flirts cheekily with father and son. After all, Fredrik had a mistress for several years. The actress Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck). But of course Fredrik is caught, in the classic way. He talks in his sleep. Murmurs "Desiree". But life with Desiree is dangerous, especially when Fredrik slips, falls into a puddle and covers the dressing gown of her current lover. An earl, who challenges him to a duel... And Petra? She is now flirting with Mrs Armfeldt's groom (Naima Wifstrand). Everybody is human is very alert to the erotic. Especially during the endless summer days in Sweden, when the night only seems like a short wave. And everybody has drunk enough wine, which finally stimulates the seduction arts. And this is supposed to be a Bergman film? Of course it is! Even Smiles Of A Summer Night has its dark, desperate moments. For example when Charlotte reveals her views on men: "Men are horrible, vain and conceited. They have hair all over their bodies." But she says that before she drinks her wine. At one point I read that Bergman generally shot his films in the spring, which is why the images are so clear. Smiles Of A Spring Night, but so be it. This comedy is simply perfect! A beguiling movie, in which the characters act morally reprehensible, but always feel the need to at least explain themselves.