Customer Reviews

Monika [VHS]

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This 1953 film is available on region free Tartan DVD from amazon.co.uk as "Summer with Monika" (almost directly translated from the original title "Sommaren med Monika".) It's an OK edition, worth obtaining especially for Bergman fans. The film is also available on NTSC VHS as "Monika." Renaming the title of this film yet another time as "Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl" is just ridiculous. Even if the studio that will provide this DVD is going to be Criterion, I will certainly have to think twice whether or not I want "Bergman's Story of Monika the Bad Girl" on my bookshelf...who the hell is handing out these additional/optional movie titles over 50 years in retrospect, anyway...?
Aside from unaccredited roles in past Ingmar Bergman films, Harriet Andersson is introduced in a leading role alongside Lars Ekborg (both in their twenties playing 17 year old Monika and 19 year old Harry.) As often in Bergman's films the story has a deeper meaning than its basic plot, and has a stable shifting of multiple emotion. This is also one of few Bergman films to feature so many beautiful Swedish archipelago images. Among his better from the early era.

This look at the drives and needs of teenagers on the cusp of adulthood has many facets. The most interesting is its examination of the forces that drive people together.

The need for independence, for affection, for acceptance drives Monika into the arms of Harry. He provides these needs and they run off together.

As the story progresses Monika discovers she has given up one cage for another, one of her own making. In finding this she does what she knows best - runs away.

The transformation of Monika from a fresh faced young teenager at the beginning of the film to a woman whose inner ugliness is beginning to shine through is one of the great character developments on film.

This is a beautiful film about youth and love and loss. The acting is great. Harriet Anderson as Monika is gorgeous. The Swedish title translates as "A Summer with Monika." No doubt the Puritan American censors had to put "bad girl" in the American version's original 1955 title to keep up their record of stupid hypocrisy. One of my favorite Bergman pictures.

A love affair as poignant as the fleeting summer.The 50s feel of in-laws and cramped spaces.The great sense
of the escape from work and slavery,the glinting summer sun reflected in the water,the sporting young lovers without a care in the world.Then with offspring, the need to earn more money with the re-emmersion back into reality and wage slavery, with no escape.Bergman showcases the remarkable Harriet Anderson,sensual tigress, who went on to make more films with him.She had none of the introspective,nervous intensity of his later heroines, but a sense of instinct and wild abandon.The story is simple and well told.Luc Godard was inspired by this early Bergman film.This is the glimmer in the eye of world cinema.

This picture finds a very young Bergman (still in his 34) dealing with a very agile and fascinating psychological portrait of a family who is passing through a very serious affective and emotional crisis. With a great doses of humor, Bergman draws an admirable semblance of the youth (through Monika `s character) as well as the identity crisis of a married woman who must decide between the well known marriage `s traditions instead of follow her primary instincts with a renowned sculptor.

Far beyond of the pleasant ending, mature and disturbing reflection nestle in this peculiar film, who must be watched with the considerations of those times.

Watch it and maybe you and I agree respect the fact this has been possibly the main inspiration `s source to Woody Allen `s films such as Interiors, Hannah and her sisters, Stardust memories and Husband and wives.

monika is yummy. i have to say. in the beginning of the film, she is so infectous & as she & her lover run away for a summer on some unnamed swedish inlet, the growing cuteness is unbearable.

then, she gets pregnant, the dream grows fuzzy, and is replaced by a new one.

the doom & gloom they inevitably stumble upon is caught by slow, beautiful shots of the water, and always by monika's luminous face.

enchanting.