Summer Interlude Review

Summer Interlude
Young ballerina Marie meets wealthy college boy Henrik while staying at her Uncle's house

by Nick Dawson |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Oct 1951

Running Time:

96 minutes

Certificate:

PG

Original Title:

Summer Interlude

Possibly Ingmar Bergman's first great film, this is a tale of tragic young love and its repercussions.

Ballerina Marie (the beautiful Maj-Britt Nilsson) and student Henrik (Birger Malmsten) spend an idyllic summer together before he dies suddenly after an accident. Devastated, Marie closes herself off from love until she finds her diary from that summer.

Displaying growing confidence as a filmmaker, Bergman juxtaposes opposites like isolation and happiness, doom and hope, and - in a film that preaches happiness though its central emotion is one of sadness - shows us just how close these opposites can be to each other.

Complex and beguiling this is the first foothold on Bergman's climb to brilliance.
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