Summer With Monica ( Sommaren med Monika ) ( Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl )

Summer With Monica (DVD) (*)

~~$28.99~~ $22.97

Original Title: Sommaren med Monika
Alternate Title: Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl
Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
Swedish ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
92 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Filmographies
Interactive Menu
Production Notes
Scene Access
Trailer(s)
Black & White

Movie filmed in 1953 and produced in:
Sweden ( Scandinavia, Iceland )

Directed By:
Ingmar Bergman

Written By:
Ingmar Bergman

Actors:
Harriet Andersson ..... Monika
Lars Ekborg ..... Harry
Dagmar Ebbesen ..... Harry's aunt
Åke Fridell ..... Monika's father
Naemi Briese ..... Monika's mother
Åke Grönberg ..... Harry's friend at work
Sigge Fürst ..... Porcelain warehouse worker
John Harryson ..... Lelle

Synopsis:

Harry Lund, 19 years old, works at a stock-room for glass and porcelain. In the vicinity works 17 year old Monika at a stock-room for vegetables. Monika is a cheerful and happy young woman and when she sees Harry at a cafe she starts to talk with him. They fall in love with each other. Because of their age, they are both harassed at their respective places of work. Monika has an argument with her father and leaves her home, Harry has an argument with his boss and quits. Since they have nothing that ties them to the city, they take Harry's small boat to the archipelago to be alone for a few weeks.

Released in 1953, Summer with Monika, an early Ingmar Bergman-directed melodrama, did much to establish the reputation of Swedish cinema, and perhaps Swedish women in general, as leading the vanguard in sexual liberation. The film attracted the wrath of the censors and one scene of lovemaking had to be cut. While subsequent generations will look at the film and wonder whatever the fuss was about, it retains a vivid and frolicsome sensuality, before submitting to the inevitable, Bergmanesque bleakness.

The film tells the story of a young couple, Harry (Lars Ekborg) and Monika (18-year-old Harriet Andersson, with whom Bergman would fall in love) stuck in lousy jobs in Stockholm. Harry is beset by parental responsibility--his mother died young and his father is ill--while Monika is fed up with her drunken, violent father. They escape in a motorboat and to spend a blissful summer on an island in the archipelago. Once Monika gets pregnant and they're forced to steal food, however, the idyll concludes and they return to Stockholm, where the relationship disintegrates. You realise that Monika, from a large and fractious family, yearns for escapism, while Harry, who has never known true family life, longs for domestic stability. It is he who is left holding the baby. But Bergman does not quite condemn Monika, giving her one of his best scenes: in a cafe, estranged from Harry, chatting up a stranger, she stares unwaveringly and directly to camera, as if defying us to judge her. Visually ravishing, this film would have a deep impact on French New Wave cinema.

This product was added to our catalog on Friday 28 March, 2008.

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