We often wonder if the characters carry so much pain, that their quips and denigration of each other are the only way they have to exorcise it. This dichotomy between love and hate, gives the film a sensuous feeling. “Our superb trysts aside, you are my only friend” says a vulnerable Fredrik to the delicious Desiree who minutes later has congratulated him for looking “unusually human”. The film is filled with rich detail and little moments during which Bergman’s dialogues truly shine. Yet deftly, with an almost godly purpose, the filmmaker takes them towards pleasing resolutions that must have been delineated carefully, but seem to reach their conclusion almost preternaturally. By the time the six characters are thrown together in the estate, tensions are boiling to such a point, that we wonder how Bergman will deal with all of them. The scenes leading to the country house are filled with memorable moments, including an encounter between Fredrik and Carl in Desiree’s house and a harsh, almost cruel conversation between Anne and Charlotte. Over the course of a summer night, which seems to have been dreamt up by Moliere and Shakespeare, in Desiree’s mother’s (Naima Wifstrand) country estate, these six will end up forming three couples. Then there’s theater actress and Fredrik’s former mistress Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck), her current lover Count Carl Magnus Malcolm (Jarl Kulle) and his icy wife Charlotte (Margit Carlqvist). The plot revolves around the lives of six people: lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand), his young virginal wife Anne (Ulla Jacobsson) and Egerman’s religious son Henrik (Björn Bjelfvenstam) who has feelings for his stepmother. The director’s creative juices seemed to be flowing inversely than what you’d expect and from his depression sprang Smiles of a Summer Night. This is what one would imagine the filming of Cries and Whispers to have been like, yet instead in his darkest films, he was making jokes and gossiping about the actors’ sex lives. He became ill, was going through a tumultuous relationship and had no money left. Bergman had been warned by his studio that they’d stop funding his films if he didn’t deliver a commercial success. How the film came to happen makes for an even more puzzling situation. Not only is this one of the funniest films ever made, it’s also a perfect example of transcendental comedy. Smiles of a Summer Night in particular forces the viewer, especially those familiar with Bergman’s latter work, to reexamine their preconceptions about his work. Yet take a closer look and it’s all there: the deeply embedded melancholy, the longing for answers that might never come, the exquisite performances (especially by actresses), the strange feeling of emptiness…as Woody Allen once said referring to The Seventh Seal, his films were “hardly anyone’s idea of a good time”, but somehow they were. Considering Bergman became notorious for his raw, metaphysical dramas and his exposure of god’s silence, this film about mismatched couples and horny servants seems almost “light”. Not only is it a comedy, it’s also deliriously romantic. The film often seems odd when juxtaposed with the rest of Bergman’s canon. The difference between who Ingmar Bergman was and who audiences imagined he’d be is never more striking than when listening to the behind the scenes stories about the making of Smiles of a Summer Night.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |