SUMMER INTERLUDE Movie Review

Illicit Interlude
Summerplay
Sommarlek

Just before an opening night performance, a prima ballerina, Marie (Maj-Britt Nilson), receives the diary of a boy she had an affair with ten years ago, when they were both students. The boy has since died, and the diary stirs memories in the dancer that will alter the course of her life, and will clear her mind and heart in ways she could never have imagined. Ingmar Bergman's 1950 Summer Interlude remains one the director's favorite films, and with good reason. This is a genuinely touching and heartfelt testament to the power of memory, and it's a bracing reminder of our too-often untapped capacity for self-healing and for spiritual regeneration. Intelligent, sensitive, and profound, Bergman's delicate movie is also—indirectly—about the cinema, the medium's ability to transport its audience through eloquent epiphanies like the joy regained by Marie in Summer Interlude.

NEXT STOP … Smiles of a Summer Night, Fanny and Alexander, Babette's Feast

1950 95m/B SW Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin; D: Ingmar Bergman; W: Ingmar Bergman. VHS HMV, NLC