Summer with MonikaPassion is a fire of the young which burns brighter at first, then cooler over time; left unattended, the flame can die out. Summer with Monika is a romantic drama, a story about young love and the revelations of adulthood that comes after that passionate verve has quelled. Harry (Lars Ekborg) meets Monika (Harriet Andersson) one afternoon at a bar, and the mutual attraction they share blossoms into a romance. When events in Monika's home life prompts her to run away, she and Harry embark on a sojourn into the country by boat, where their innocent love ripens into passion, but turns sour when the reality of their deeper values come into conflict.
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Summer with Monika was an early film for filmmaker Ingmar Bergman; when released in America, the titillation at a scene containing brief nudity--Monika preparing to skinny-dip in a spring--was apparently sufficient to promote the film as a provocative, sexy romp into "sexual liberation" and the like. The great irony of promoting a film on these elements--which are negligible in the greater context of the film--meant that it drew an audience to the burgeoning "arthouse cinema" of Bergman--including, as the story goes, filmmakers like Woody Allen--that might have never had exposure to the auspicious beginnings of one of film's greatest auteurs. Far from the American degradation of the film, Summer with Monika is a realist romance, one set among the blue-collar environs of 1950s Stockholm, where a boy like Harry and a girl like Monika are not even in their twenties, but slave away at menial jobs to support their families and themselves. When they do meet, there is a spark of attraction, even if the nervous Harry struggles to kindle the literal spark of a match because he's so nervous in the company of the lovely Monika. Monika acts mature, crass, even a bit trashy, and perhaps this appeals to the naive Harry, who's likely still a virgin at the start of the film. Monika endures the molestations of her co-workers and the drunken abuses of her father up until she finds that she can escape into Harry's arms, who offers her refuge in his father's boat. Stirred by Monika's apparent readiness to abandon the trappings of servitude, Harry quits his job--with its slavish management--and he and Monika flee for the countryside, away from the money-grubbing capitalist prison of the unnatural city for the freedom and liberation of the natural life--one where they can sleep outdoors, go dancing when they want, and make love under the stars. But this summer, like all summers, has to end, and that ending emerges when the stress of being unable to adequately get food and the confinement with one another makes them resentful of each other. Monika reacts by lashing out at Harry, accusing him of various weaknesses, whereas Harry justifies his actions when he can and desperately tries to diffuse his lover's wroth. It is evident that the sympathies of Summer with Monika lie with Harry, but Monika is still presented as a convincing, natural young woman who has been unable to find her dream life from the movies in her own life, no matter how radical the changes she tries to spark. For her, she is in quicksand, flailing around desperately, trying against better judgment to provoke some magical response to improve her lot in life. She sees Harry's commitment to schooling as an unexciting, slow process to a better life. In Monika's eyes, Harry represented an immediate change from her old world; but when the summer ends, she realizes that he wasn't that quick fix--she desperately seeks more, always more.
The low-income world of Summer with Monika is one where there are no easy outs, contrary to Monika's desires. The maturity which eventually comes to Harry is the understanding that one must work within that strata in order to succeed and genuinely provide for those who you love. Harry and Monika act like adults from the start, going through the motions, but still appearing a bit like kids in grown-up clothing. Parents are rarely seen, and when they are, they are nearly infirm with sickness like Harry's father, or shadows of their own disastrous marriage to come, like Monika's folks. Harry is seduced by the frankness and vivacity of Monika, and is also lured in by her somewhat manipulative encouragement to escape from their dull lives and jobs and indulge in a romance away from society, save for the periodic intrusions by Monika's vengeful ex-boyfriend, Lelle (John Harryson). But as the two young lovers spend more and more time with each other, it's clear that they don't genuinely share their deeper interests in what matters in life, and suddenly are not the lovestruck teens we met at the beginning of the film, but matured into the somewhat wiser adults they will become--distance and mutual suffering is inevitable. Harry is hurt by Monika's wantonness, while Monika is hurt by the impression that Harry takes her for granted. Even from the start, it's evident that these two don't have a whole lot in common but an unacknowledged lust for one another which is like a hunger that must be fed. While Summer with Monika is not the overtly sexual film which it was advertised as to American audiences, it is a film which speaks to a basic sense of sexual awakening which comes to teenagers and young adults as they reach maturity. It also captures the futility of trying to pursue a perception of romance as illustrated by movies and the like, a fiction like the one which puts Monika in tears and has her quoting lines from it to Harry on their first date. For Monika, her life is so depressing and boring that the dream is to live a life free from responsibility, one where happy endings like those in the movies are the norm and once the credits roll, there is no more pain or obligation. But Harry acknowledges that he must find his path by pursuing that which he genuinely enjoys, hence he goes back to school to become an engineer. Ultimately, this means that his obligations to Monika become ancillary to his revelation of what he wants out of life. The painful climax of Summer with Monika is only so because it is like so many relationships where people desperately try to hold on to something that isn't there--maybe it was something that had been and no longer is...maybe it is something that never was and is only now evident with time and wisdom. Summer with Monika is a romance, but it is a realistic, worldly one that acknowledges that life isn't always like the movies, and in reality, happy endings are anathema to real growth.
Recommended for: Fans of a revolutionary romance and early introduction to the magic of Ingmar Bergman's masterful dramas. It is also a commentary on the struggles of the working class paralleled with the slavish, Sisyphean efforts to try to make a relationship work that is destined for destruction.
The low-income world of Summer with Monika is one where there are no easy outs, contrary to Monika's desires. The maturity which eventually comes to Harry is the understanding that one must work within that strata in order to succeed and genuinely provide for those who you love. Harry and Monika act like adults from the start, going through the motions, but still appearing a bit like kids in grown-up clothing. Parents are rarely seen, and when they are, they are nearly infirm with sickness like Harry's father, or shadows of their own disastrous marriage to come, like Monika's folks. Harry is seduced by the frankness and vivacity of Monika, and is also lured in by her somewhat manipulative encouragement to escape from their dull lives and jobs and indulge in a romance away from society, save for the periodic intrusions by Monika's vengeful ex-boyfriend, Lelle (John Harryson). But as the two young lovers spend more and more time with each other, it's clear that they don't genuinely share their deeper interests in what matters in life, and suddenly are not the lovestruck teens we met at the beginning of the film, but matured into the somewhat wiser adults they will become--distance and mutual suffering is inevitable. Harry is hurt by Monika's wantonness, while Monika is hurt by the impression that Harry takes her for granted. Even from the start, it's evident that these two don't have a whole lot in common but an unacknowledged lust for one another which is like a hunger that must be fed. While Summer with Monika is not the overtly sexual film which it was advertised as to American audiences, it is a film which speaks to a basic sense of sexual awakening which comes to teenagers and young adults as they reach maturity. It also captures the futility of trying to pursue a perception of romance as illustrated by movies and the like, a fiction like the one which puts Monika in tears and has her quoting lines from it to Harry on their first date. For Monika, her life is so depressing and boring that the dream is to live a life free from responsibility, one where happy endings like those in the movies are the norm and once the credits roll, there is no more pain or obligation. But Harry acknowledges that he must find his path by pursuing that which he genuinely enjoys, hence he goes back to school to become an engineer. Ultimately, this means that his obligations to Monika become ancillary to his revelation of what he wants out of life. The painful climax of Summer with Monika is only so because it is like so many relationships where people desperately try to hold on to something that isn't there--maybe it was something that had been and no longer is...maybe it is something that never was and is only now evident with time and wisdom. Summer with Monika is a romance, but it is a realistic, worldly one that acknowledges that life isn't always like the movies, and in reality, happy endings are anathema to real growth.
Recommended for: Fans of a revolutionary romance and early introduction to the magic of Ingmar Bergman's masterful dramas. It is also a commentary on the struggles of the working class paralleled with the slavish, Sisyphean efforts to try to make a relationship work that is destined for destruction.