Summer with Monika

Director: Ingmar Bergman

1953 / 96min / 35mm

While Bergman is often associated with long, dark winters of the soul, the Swede was every bit as accomplished when dealing with sun-kissed sensuality—as amply evidenced in his ravishing Summer with Monika, in which two young lovers (Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg) flee sour, dour Stockholm to spend a summer sailing the islands of the Skärgård in a stolen boat. The film’s fresh and frank eroticism shocked and enticed American audiences in the early ’50s, but while photographed naked flesh is not such a rare commodity today, the film’s rhapsodic vision of idyllic escape—and ultimate back-to-earth disillusion—combine to make it eternally essential cinema.

Part of Summer at Sea