Summer with Monika
{{short description|1953 film}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox film
| name = Sommaren med Monika
| image = Sommaren-med-Monika (Summer with monika).jpg
| caption = Original Swedish film poster
| director = Ingmar Bergman
| producer = Allan Ekelund
| writer = Ingmar Bergman
| based_on = {{based on|Sommaren med Monika
1951 novel|Per Anders Fogelström}}
| starring = Harriet Andersson
Lars Ekborg
| cinematography = Gunnar Fischer
| music = Erik Nordgren
Les Baxter
| released = {{film date|1953|02|09|Sweden|1955|09|01|U.S.|df=y}}
| runtime = 96 minutes
| country = Sweden
| language = Swedish
}}
Summer with Monika ({{langx|sv|Sommaren med Monika}}) is a 1953 Swedish romance film. The motion picture was both written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. This featured Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg portraying the main characters. The plot was derived from one of Per Anders Fogelström's novels, of which had the same title, from 1951. Controversial because of one scene portrayal of au naturel and, along with the film One Summer of Happiness from the year before, directed by Arne Mattsson, contributed to an idea of Sweden as an immodest, sexually loose population.
The film made a star of its lead actress, Andersson. Bergman had been intimately involved with Andersson at the time and conceived the film as a vehicle for her. The two of them would continue to work together, even after their romantic relationship had ended, in films like Sawdust and Tinsel, Smiles of a Summer Night, Through a Glass Darkly, and Cries and Whispers.
Plot
In Stockholm, the young working-class Harry meets Monika, an adventurous young woman, in a cafe near to his workplace. Monika invites Harry to join her to see a movie at the local cinema after his work shift. The two spend the rest of the evening together, and find themselves enamored of one another. At her home, Monika tires of her alcoholic father's incessant drinking and violent outbursts, packs her belongings and runs away. She seeks help from Harry, who goes to spend the night with her in his father's docked boat. After getting into an argument with his boss the following morning, Harry quits his job.
The two decide to leave the city, and take the boat into the Stockholm Archipelago, where they spend an idyllic summer together. When the end of the summer forces them to return home, it is clear that Monika is pregnant. Harry happily accepts responsibility and settles down with Monika and their child; he gets a real job and goes to night school to provide for his family. Monika, however, is unsatisfied with her role as homemaker. She yearns for excitement and adventure, a desire which finally leads her astray. Harry leaves town for work and comes home a day early to find his wife with another man. After deciding to separate and in his rage at her flippancy, Harry hits her and leaves the apartment. They get a divorce and Monika flees the responsibility of child rearing leaving Harry with custody of their daughter, June, to raise alone. In the final shot while he looks in a mirror, he fantasizes about the time they spent together.
Cast
{{Cast list|
- Harriet Andersson as Monika
- Lars Ekborg as Harry
- John Harryson as Lelle
- Georg Skarstedt as Harry's father
- Dagmar Ebbesen as Harry's aunt
- Åke Fridell as Monika's father
- Naemi Briese as Monika's mother
- Åke Grönberg as Harry's friend at work
- Sigge Fürst as Porcelain warehouse worker
}}
US release
In 1955, two years after the film was released in Sweden, a high-profile article "Sin & Sweden" was written in Time magazine, about living conditions in a secularized Swedish society. The debate in the US that followed, in the midst of the Cold War, was marked by conservative hostility to anything resembling socialism. This and above all commercial interests contributed to the exploitation market's interest in the concept of Swedish sin.{{Cite news|last=Brown|first=Joe David|date=25 April 1955|title=Sin & Sweden|work=Time magazine|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,861357-2,00.html|access-date=6 March 2021}}{{Cite journal|last=Arnberg|first=Klara|title=Synd på export|journal=Historisk Tidskrift|language=Swedish|volume=129:3-2009|pages=467–486}}Image:monikamovie.JPG
Also in 1955, exploitation film presenter Kroger Babb purchased the US rights to the film. To increase excitement for the film, he edited it down to 62 minutes and emphasized the film's nudity. Renaming the film Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl, he provided a good deal of suggestive promotional material, including postcards featuring the nude Andersson.Eric Schaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999; {{ISBN|0-8223-2374-5}}).
The exploitation version of Bergman’s film successfully played rural drive-in theatres for years, unaffected by the fact that a year later it was re-contracted, this time with Janus Films, to let the uncut, subtitled version play at art-theaters as well. The film was thus available to two different types of American audiences simultaneously.{{Cite book|last=Stevenson|first=Jack|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/449283851|title=Scandinavian blue : the erotic cinema of Sweden and Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s|date=2010|publisher=McFarland & Co|isbn=978-0-7864-4488-5|location=Jefferson, N.C.|pages=16–19|oclc=449283851}}
Reception
Summer with Monika has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.{{cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monika-1953|title=Summer with Monika (1953)|work=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=7 February 2017}}
See also
- Nudity in film
- The exploitation film Blonde in Bondage (1957) is directly inspired by the Time magazine article.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{commons category|Sommaren med Monika}}
- {{IMDb title|0046345}}
- {{tcmdb title|id=303979}}
- {{Sfdb title}}
- [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2314-summer-with-monika-summer-dreaming Summer with Monika: Summer Dreaming] an essay by Laura Hubner at the Criterion Collection
{{Ingmar Bergman}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Summer With Monika}}
Category:1953 romantic drama films
Category:Swedish romantic drama films
Category:1950s Swedish-language films
Category:Swedish black-and-white films
Category:Films set in Stockholm
Category:Films set on uninhabited islands
Category:Films set in the Baltic Sea
Category:Films directed by Ingmar Bergman