June 4, 2008
Mrs. Armfeldt: "Your children are very beautiful, especially the young girl.
Fredrik Egerman: The young girl is my wife, Mrs. Armfeldt.
Mrs. Armfeldt: I believe you lead a very strenuous life, Mr. Egerman."
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Successful lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand) has a young wife (Ulla Jacobsson) he hasn't slept with, a son (Björn Bjelfvenstam) who lusts after his father's wife and maid, and a dormant love affair with a well-known actress (Eva Dahlbeck). After a visit to the theatre, he meets his former mistress' new love - a jealous military man (Jarl Kulle) prone to duelling and boastful claims of infidelity. But few in this arrangement seem content with the cards they've drawn, so the women begin planning the means by which they can get the men they truly love. Naturally, this involves several underhanded techniques, including a wife wagering her husband that she can seduce Egerman in under fifteen minutes, and a button that moves a bed from one room to the next without waking the occupant.
All of this is filmed with tongue firmly in cheek by master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, thus making Smiles of a Summer Night a traditional/romantic comedy, a bit of a departure for Bergman as we know him, but perfectly normal for a young (37, at the time) director largely unknown outside his native Sweden. When this film came out, in '55, Bergman had yet to make the masterpieces The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), or his "Faith" trilogy - Through a Glass Darkly (1961); Winter Light (1962); The Silence (1963) - and had yet to plumb the depths of despair, question the nature of God or inspire the term "Bergmanesque" for generations of film buffs to come. Still, this is Bergman, so Smiles of a Summer Night is a comedy not so much because it includes humour, but more because it lacks that all-encompassing sense of desperation we come to expect. It's like calling fifty degrees pleasant in the middle of winter.
Oh, but what a lovely fifty degrees it is. Beyond a token fall, the humour comes in sharp little stabs meant to be both devilish and witty at the same time. The film is dark, sadistic, amoral, and a lot of fun. Bergma's main skewer is Fredrik's son Henrik, a minister in training who spends long hours reading aloud the works of Martin Luther and preaching virtue, but is at numerous opportunities succumbing to the temptations of the flesh. For these indiscretions he is understandably tormented, but Bergman gets great delight not by showing his torment, but by ridiculing it as the idealism of a foolish youth.
There's no mistaking that the film views Henrik as an idiot. He has the respect of no one, not even himself, and he loathes a father who, from what we can tell, appears to be a reasonable man. But Henrik cannot seem to strike a balance between his actions and his beliefs. In one scene, he is sleeping with the maid, but the next morning when she attempts to seduce him, he runs away ashamed like a little boy. In a world where infidelity is tossed about minus remorse, this makes him the object of disdain.
Probably the best way to describe Smiles of a Summer Night is as a vicious comedy of manners. The jealous military man, Count Carl Magnus Malcolm, declares before his wife, "I can tolerate my wife's infidelity, but if anyone touches my mistress, I become a tiger.", then declares the reverse before his mistress, with little thought as to how either woman will react. Later, he challenges Fredrik to a duel of Russian roulette where between spins of the chamber, they toast to each other's health. Essentially what Bergman does is take a normal, Victorian scenario and infuse it with his world-view, his misconceptions, and his dark sense of humour.
Smiles of a Summer Night is a comedy, but more importantly it is a vital piece of the Bergman filmography for it shows a side of him that we don't often see, and rarely account for when we think of something as "Bergmanesque", even though it fits the criteria perfectly. We tend to forget that Bergman had a sense of humour, which is a shame, because it's dead razor sharp.
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