SUMMER INTERLUDE

(Sommarlek, 1951)

SYNOPSIS

Marie is a student at the Opera Ballet School, and she observes a young timid student,
Henrik, who seems to admire her. During summer vacation they meet on a boat trip, fall
in love, and spend wonderful weeks together. Henrik dies in an accident, however, and
Marie falls into an affair with her old uncle, Erland.

Ten years later, Marie has become a prima ballerina. Before an opening night she
receives Henrik's diary. After quarrelling with her present lover, David, a journalist, she
travels to the summer cottage where she recalls the time with Henrik.

She returns to the ballet and gives the diary to David that he may understand her better.
The memories have purged her life of the darkness it has been in these ten years, and she
now looks forward to life with David.

REVIEWS

"This early Ingmar Bergman film is about the loss of love: a tired ballerina of 28 (Maj-
Britt Nilsson), who has ceased to feel or care, is suddenly caught up by the memory of
the summer when her life ended. We see her then as a fresh, eager 15-year-old, in love
with a frightened, uncertain student (beautifully played by Birger Malmsten), and we
watch the delicate shades of their "summerplay," interrupted by glances at adult relatives,
as Bergman contrasts decadence and youth, corruption and beauty. In the early part, an
old woman appears for just a moment in a road, walking—and this image, like the
croquet game in the later Smiles of a Summer Night, seems to be suspended in time.
Bergman found his style in this film, and it is regarded by cinema historians not only as
his breakthrough but also as the beginning of 'a new, great epoch in Swedish films.' Many
of the themes (whatever one thinks of them) 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. But this movie, with its rapturous yet ruined love affair, also has a
lighter side: an elegiac grace and sweetness."
— Pauline Kael

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COMMENTARY
"For me Summer Interlude is one of my most important films. Even though to an outsider
it may seem terribly passé, for me it isn't. This was my first film in which I felt I was
functioning independently, with a style of my own, making a film all my own, with a
particular appearance of its own, which no one could ape. It was like no other film. It was
all my own work. Suddenly I knew I was putting the camera on the right spot, getting the
right results; that everything added up. For sentimental reasons, too, it was also fun
making it."
— Ingmar Bergman, Bergman on Bergman

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FURTHER READING

Jean-Luc Godard: "Bergmanorama"

Philip Strick: "Film Notes"

Cast Credits
Marie: Maj-Britt Nilsson
Henrik: Birger Malmsten
David Nyström: Alf Kjellin
Kaj: Annalisa Ericson
Uncle Erland: Georg Funkquist
Ballet master: Stig Olin
Petite woman: Mimi Pollak
Aunt Elisabeth: Renée Björling
Pastor: Gunnar Olsson
Nisse: Douglas Håge
Karl: John Botvid
Producer: Allan Ekelund
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman and Herbert Grevenius, based on Mari, a story by Bergman
Cinematography: Gunnar Fischer
Art Direction: Nils Svenwall
Music: Erik Nordgren, Bengt Wallerström, Eskil Eckert-Lundin
Editor: Oscar Rosander

Birger Malmsten, Maj-Britt Nilsson

SUMMER INTERLUDE
Original title:
Sommarlek ["Summer play"; "Summergame"]

Other titles:
Un'estate d'amore (Italy); Illicit Interlude (US); Jeux d'été (France); Juegos de verano
(Spain); Juventud, divino tesoro (Uruguay); Kesäinen leikki (Finland); Letni sen
(Poland); Einen Sommer lang (Germany); Sommerleg (Denmark); Sommerlek (Norway)

Production:
Svensk Filmindustri

Distribution:
Svensk Filmindustri

Premiere:
1 October 1951 (Röda Kvarn, Stockholm)

Filmed:
on the Stockholm archipelago (Dalarö-Rosenön, Saltsjöbaden, Sandemar), and at
Råsunda Studios; from 3 April to 18 June 1950.

SUMMER INTERLUDE
COMMENTARY

"I had always felt technically crippled—insecure with the crew, the cameras, the sound
equipment—everything. Sometimes a film succeeded, but I never got what I wanted to
get. But in Summer Interlude, I suddenly felt that I knew my profession."
— Ingmar Bergman (1971)

"We filmed it in Stockholm's outer archipelago. The landscape had a special mixture of
tempered countryside and wilderness, which played an important part in the different
time schemes, in the luminescence of summer and in the autumnal twilight. A touch of
genuine tenderness is achieved through Maj-Britt Nilsson's performance. The camera
catches her with an affection that is easy to comprehend. She embraced the girl's story
and lifted it higher with her brilliant mixture of playfulness and seriousness. The filming
became one of my happy experiences."
— Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life in Film