Smiles of a Summer Night (1957)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Captivating movie !

Blistering performances.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A bunch of upper class folk spend a weekend together at a country house. Lots of bed hopping, betrayal, male macho posturing, and female manipulation ensues. Never for a second dull, but for me never quite rose to the heights of Bergman's best works either. Personally I found the Soundheim musical adaptation of this - 'A Little Night Music' - more moving and human. There's a bit distanced and controlling about Bergman's approach which limits our chance to empathize with these characters. I smiled a lot, but was left wanting something deeper. Sort of a fun one-night-stand of a film.

Ingmar Bergman's 1955 comedy Smiles Of A Summer Night (Sommarnattens Leende) was the film that first garnered him international recognition. It would be a couple of years before The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries cemented his reputation as an international film auteur, but looking back on this film, over a half a century later, and half a world away, it only shows how differently tastes in humor can be. Compared to today's better film comedies, this film is both more mature and more puerile in its approach to sex, in that it treats its characters as intellectual beings, yet also shows them as somehow reserved. Granted, the film is set in turn of the 20th Century Sweden, yet there is still an element missing in the film, especially when compared to later films in the Bergman canon. That missing element would most likely be depth. Yes, compared to even more 'intellectual' Hollywood comedies of recent vintage, like Sideways, Smiles Of A Summer Night is far deeper, but there is truth to the old Woody Allen claim that drama is 'sitting at the grown ups table'. In fact, Allen was so smitten with this film that he tried to do his own version of it a quarter century later, in A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. Of course, his own film was one of Allen's lesser works. Yet, so too is this film one of Bergman's lesser works. Stephen Sondheim also based his musical, A Little Night Music, on this film. The camera work, by Bergman's first collaborating cinematographer, Gunnar Fischer, is stellar, especially in the interior scenes, where the whites radiate like novae in comparison to the pitch hues, but the film is at its weakest in the characterizations. No, unlike most modern fiction in film or prose, it is not a failure for its reliance on the trite, but for its simple lack of detail. The viewer is never drawn into the characterizations nor dilemmas of the main protagonists. This is certainly a flaw that dogs most comedies. Even the comedies of William Shakespeare are notably deficient in this area- most especially his appropriately wretched A Midsummer Night's Dream. Yet, even though this is the only real failure of the film, it is enough to make this a rather tepid viewing experience, especially for the refined Bergmaniac.

In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the successful fifty years old lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand) has been married for three years with his naive nineteen years old wife Anne (Ulla Jacobsson), who is still virgin. His adult son from his former marriage, Henrik (Björn Bjelvenstam), lives in celibate preparing to be a priest. Their servant is the young and futile Petra (Harriet Andersson), who easily falls in love for every man. When Frederik goes to the theater with Anne, he sees the actress and his former mistress Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck) and he meets her alone in her dressing room after the performance. They go to her house, Frederik falls in one puddle and she gives the robe and the pajamas of her present lover, the military Count Carl Magnus Malcolm (Jarl Kulle), who is married with Anne's friend Countess Charlotte Malcolm (Margit Carlquist). However, Malcolm unexpectedly arrives and after the unpleasant encounter of the trio, Desiree ends their relationship. On the next morning, Desiree plots a weekend in her mother's summer real state with Frederik, Anne, Henrik, Malcolm and Charlotte, with the intention of seducing Frederik again. Along the night, with the three smiles of love, four couples are formed."Sommarnattens Leende" is a delightful, cynical and witty romantic comedy with wonderful dialogs and situations. Showing a magnificent art direction and cinematography, this sardonic story discloses three different types of love: the pure of the youngsters, represented by Anne and Henrik; the silly and quite naive, represented by the maid Petra and the groom Frid; and the cynical and malicious of the arrogant Malcolm and Charlotte and the Machiavellian Desiree and Frederik. In the DVD, Ingmar Bergman explains the importance of this movie in his career, with the recognition of the Sweden Industry giving independence for him after the worldwide success of "Sommarnattens Leende" inclusive in Cannes Festival. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Sorrisos de Uma Noite de Amor" ("Smiles of a Night of Love")

This movie reminds me so much of the French film "The Rules of the Game" ("Règle du jeu") because both are set in upper-crust society and concern the many affairs that ensued. This film, though, is a little different in that the humor is MUCH more restrained and not nearly as over-the-top as Renoir's flick AND the main characters in this Swedish film try to pretend to have conventional morality--whereas in the French film adultery is a little more openly accepted. Also, although The Rules of the Game is often ranked as one of the best foreign films, I think Bergman's is actually a better film. Why? First, there seems to be more of a message to the film--despite a cynical look at conventional marriage, the film SEEMS to actually support it in some ways (though not for every couple). Secondly, the Bergman film also looks prettier--almost like a fairy tale at times.While "sex farces" are NOT my cup of tea, if you MUST watch one, this one's about as good as any.