Ingmar Bergman is one of the most famous Swedish people ever I think, it's like him and Nobel, or maybe ABBA or Carl von Linné (the man who cataloged almost every flower and animal and gave them their latin names). But movie wise he is up there with the top players. According to IMdB he directed 67 movies in his life and wrote 70. He was nominated for 9 Oscars and he is one of the few people who has been nominated for best picture for a movie that isn't English speaking. This movie did not win any prizes but it remains Bergman's most watched movie in the US.
The story is about a young couple - Monika and Harry played by Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg. Ekborg is an actor I have seen a lot of growing up in Sweden, but I had no idea that he used to be this cute, and I never realized what an excellent actor he is. The two quit their jobs and take off with Harry's dad's boat to "live off the land" in the Swedish idyll. Harry is a hard worker and he really works his ass off to make Monika happy. But she happens to be quite the irresponsible little bitch. (Excuse my language but I really want to slap her.)
When they take off on the boat things start off just fine but after a while it starts to fall apart. This feeling of something's not right creeps up on you and even if you wish everything could be OK you know it won't.
One of the really interesting things about this movie is that almost every scene is a sequence shot, this means there aren't really any cuts in any scene and it is beautifully made. The composition is just amazing (I guess I should thank my teacher). And the textures of the stone and the water really makes me go back to Sweden, my grand parents live in a place like that. Summer really is wonderful in Sweden.
This movie gets really dark. Both in terms of lighting and story. Which makes it even more real I guess. Bergman manages to tell us a story that we can believe in but that we don't want to believe in. It really made me want to see more of his work, even though he is known to have been a bit "strange" I don't think I have ever seen a better teenage love than this. The script is written by Per Anders Fogelström and maybe he is the one I should credit for the story. But all in all this is a very good movie that I wish every teenager could see. The actors are great, the script is breathtaking and the directing is special and moving.
This is one of the things I enjoyed about this movie. The image to the left is the first time we see Monika in the first scene of the movie and the one to the right is the very last time we see Harry in the last scene of the movie. The movie goes full circle and even if I was depressed when I finished it I realized the day after that I really liked it. I love how movies affect me, how they inspire me and how much more it means when you really analyze it.
Have you ever seen one of Bergman's movies? Which one? What did you think?
Bisous mes amours et bon week end!
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