This was director Ingmar Bergman's break-through film, the winner of the 1956 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the first of his many internationally acclaimed films. The story is a time honored one, referrencing the same tradition of romantic complications found in Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and Rostand's LA RONDE: every one is either in love with or married to the wrong person.A famous actress with two very different lovers invites both, their wives, and the son of one lover to her mother's country estate in the hope of sorting out the romantic entanglements to her satisfaction--and the result is considerable charm and unexpectedly dry wit. All the performances are excellent, with Eva Dahlbeck's Desiree a standout, but the real star of this ensemble piece is the unexpectedly witty script. Never quite veering over into broad farce but never sinking into romantic sentimentality, it is a very precisely written tale, and both cast and director make the most of it.
In the face of Bergman's later work, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT may seem rather slight, and indeed both psychology and cinematography is considerably less complex than one expects. Even so, it is very much a Bergman film: the visual style is distinct, and the themes of appearances vs. reality, the inability to correctly interpret another's behavior, and the failure to understand one's self are very much in evidence--only here to comic effect. It is in every way a charming film that Bergman fans will enjoy.
Incidently, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT was successfully translated to the stage as the musical A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, the score of which includes the famous "Send In The Clowns." Fans of the original film will be interested to compare the two works.
The night for Fredrick and Anne (after a Platonic nap during which Fredrick inadvertently pronounces Desirée's name) begins with the theater; and who should be starring in the production but Desirée. Anne suddenly takes ill and they rush home. Fredrick now steals away to see Desirée. After a pratfall in some water he ends up in some night clothes that belong to Desirée's current lover, the militaristic Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle as a sprung-steel bantam) who, as it happens, arrives upon the scene much to the merriment of Desirée and to the embarrassment of Fredrick.
The culmination of love's labors and intrigues takes place at the chateau of Desirée's mother, Mrs. Armfeldt (Naima Wifstrand). The action includes a most amusing duel, some hanky-panky atop a haystack, musical beds, an attempted suicide, some Chateau Mouton-Rothschild (if I caught the label right), the amorous kiss of young lovers, the triumph of the fairer sex, and the very proper lawyer's final humiliation.
If you haven't seen Smiles of a Summer Night you are in for a rare treat: a comedy by Ingmar Bergman. And it is no ordinary comedy. Shakespearean and Oscar Wilde-like in its sharp, satirical (and oh so worldly wise) dialogue, this playful romp with the Swedish landed gentry and servants of a hundred years ago is a delight that will satisfy the most sophisticated viewer as well as the most middlebrow.
Owing something to the French farcical tradition (in particular Molière), to light opera (maybe Mozart), and even the Greek theater, Bergman's romantic comedy sparkles with love's intrigues and pratfalls. According to Pauline Kael, whose review is part of a 24-page booklet that comes with the Criterion Collection DVD, Bergman had just finished directing a stage production of The Merry Widow which accounts in part for the fin-de-siècle setting and the genteel treatment that he finally settled upon for his comedy of manners. Also I think this examination and satire of the class structure with hilarious asides on the foibles of human nature owes something to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest which was set in approximately the same time period and had a similar cast of characters including a Grand Dame, an ingenue, some rustics, a clergyman, but most directly in the fact that both Wilde and Bergman aim their sardonic wit directly at the burghers and the bourgeois. Bohemians need not apply. Indeed the closest thing to a Bohemian in the play is the actress Desirée who is the very calculating and dominate personage of the film.
By the way, Bergman's future protege, Bibi Andersson, does appear in this movie, but only for a moment as an actress on stage at the theater.
The final, cynical bemusement comes as one reconsiders who ends up with whom. Not to spoil the plot, but notice that in every case there is something less than perfect in each romantic partnership, something slightly amiss that may cause problems down the road, something unsettled that suggests that nothing has really changed. As the French say, the more things change, the more they remain the same. It is this ironic underpinning to this delightful comedy that lends to it something of the timeless. Bergman is good at that.
Buy Smiles of a Summer Night (The Criterion Collection) (1955) Now
I came to Ingmar Bergman films in the mid-sixties, as a teen, and liked them because they seemed so stark, so unlike the typical Hollywood fluff. They called 'em art films, but I liked Bergman because of the characters and the stories, not to mention the look and feel of his films. It was only when Criterion Collection released SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT this year that I finally got to see a film I had heard a lot about but never bothered to seek out. Criterion's other Bergman films were all must-haves so I ordered Smiles right away. (I have seen Sondheim's A Little Night Music on stage some three times and saw the film, so I suppose this Bergman source film seemed less unknown than his others. And, by the way, after seeing Smiles, I appreciate even more how nicely Sondheim et al adapted this film.) True to Criterion's high standards and TLC in presenting its films, Smiles looks as good as it must have when it was released almost fifty years ago. This light comedy involves several pairs of lovers who, for a variety of reasons, might be better off if the deck were shuffled and they ended up in another pairing. Aging actress, married lover; aging lawyer, too-young virgin wife; tortured soul son of lawyer, saucy maid temptress, and lawyer's too-young virgin wife; wife of military man who knows husband has mistresses, including the aging actress. Shuffle the deck a few times and a lot can happen in a movie with characters such as these. Sondheim wrote the entire score to A Little Night Music in waltz tempo, which perfectly captures the whirling intricacies of the relationships. Bergman started it all with a very entertaining and perfectly cast film, full of both comedy and the human dimension of mismatched people who may be investing too much energy in the wrong person. It all sounds confusing, but, trust me, you'll enjoy the heck out of this picture. If you think Bergman is just The Silence, Cries and Whispers and Winter Light, you're in for a real treat with SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT.Read Best Reviews of Smiles of a Summer Night (The Criterion Collection) (1955) Here
Bergman's first major film, and the only comedy he ever made. This will blow your socks off (especially if you only know Bergman's later works).It's a romp, a meditation on the unpredictability of life and emotions, a tribute both to perseverance and to capriciousness. The performances are flawless: engaging, complex, simultaneously light and profound.
It will make you wish Bergman had made more comedies: I've never seen another comedy that accomplishes this level of depth and vivacity, with pits of despair danced over, landing in a glorious, life-affirming ending.
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Ingmar Bergman directed a romantic comedy when he filmed Smiles of a Summer Night that is as playful as Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream and is set in a small scale backdrop of Renoir's Rules of the Game (1939). Despite the similarities of other stories Bergman creates a unique comedy that is full of conspiring intrigue as it revolves around a small number of characters at the turn of the century in a small Swedish town.Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand), a successful middle-aged lawyer and former widower, has remarried with Anne (Ulla Jacobsson) who is at least twenty years younger than him. Fredrik's son, Henrik (Björn Bjelfvenstam), from his previous marriage, is of the same age as Anne and has recently arrived home from completing his theological examinations. Petra, the family maid, flirts with Henrik as he expresses his liking for the opposite sex. As a consequence, Henrik is struggling with an overwhelming inner guilt originating from his incapability to live by his lofty values stemming from his Christian faith. In addition, the prominent actress Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck), a previous lover to Fredrik, is performing at the town theater. Fredrik makes nightly visit to Desiree which puts him in harms way as Desiree's current lover, Carl Magnus (Jarl Kulle), a military officer known for his success in duels visits at the same time. However, this is just the beginning for all the predicaments that Fredrik is about to experience.
Smiles of a Summer Night is a well-written comedy with several subplots that drive the main theme, love, forward as it displays Bergman's wide range of story telling. Bergman displays a simple story which becomes complex as the characters are continually dishonest. It is the profound level of deceitfulness in the story that produces intrigue and brings about the comedy. As the final scene fades away in memory, the audience has gone through a first class cinematic experience that will lighten and enlighten those who participated.
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