1953 Bergman movie
Rating: 16/20
Plot: Two youngsters fall for each other, but can the romance survive when things get a little too real?
I'm glad that this ended with a flashback of a scene on a beach because it saved me the trouble of having to find that scene again on my own so that I could rewatch it. Same with a lovely scene where Harriet Andersson is reclining on the front of a boat before it retreats from the camera into a watery void that only makes sense after you've watched the entire movie.
There's a real contrast with the way Bergman is showing this pair of lovebirds. The idyllic romance, a hodgepodge of random moments and lovely shots of landscape and beautiful young people, is shot in a way that makes it seem like Bergman is in love with both characters and with their relationship. It's got the innocence of a fairy tale, but the characters are naive enough to fall prey to the sorts of villains and nefarious abstractions that always seem to lurk around the edges of those fairy tales. Once the titular summer has ended, the story definitely favors one character more than the other, and Bergman doesn't really hide the idea that one of these characters deserves our hostility.
This movie begins and ends with a mirror.
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