Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Early in the 20th century, middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman and his young wife, Anne, have still not consummated their marriage, while Fredrik's son finds himself increasingly attracted to his new stepmother. To make matters worse, Fredrik's old flame Desiree makes a public bet that she can seduce him at a romantic weekend retreat where four couples convene, swapping partners and pairing off in unexpected ways.
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What critics compared Smiles of a Summer Night to
Shot by Claro in gloriously rich colors, the “Justine” half of “Melancholia” is a rich comedy of manners and buried family secrets, deliberately recalling Bergman’s country-house comedies, like “Wild Strawberries” or “Smiles of a Summer Night,” and also perhaps “The Celebration,” by von Trier’s onetime Dogme 95 collaborator Thomas Vinterberg.
It is a superb evocation of the nightless days around the summer solstice in Scandinavia, a place and time whose ethereal wrongness has only rarely been exploited by filmmakers at all, let alone horror filmmakers (Ingmar Bergman prominently used the phenomenon of midnight sun twice, in Smiles of a Summer Night and Persona , but neither of those seems to be foremost among Aster's influences).
Smiles of a Summer Night is easily compared to a buoyant, agile movie like Max Ophuls' La Ronde (1950).
Jewison captures some of the same qualities of Ingmar Bergman ’s “ Smiles of a Summer Night ,” in which nature itself conspires with lovers to bring about their happiness.
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As for Bergman's signature broodiness, we see here his lightest touch since 1955's sex farce Smiles of a Summer Night.
SWEDISH director Ingmar Bergman, whose "Smiles of a Summer Night" proved him an unsuspected master of satiric comedy, surprises again in yet another even more neglected vein with his new self-written and self-directed allegorical film, "The Seventh Seal."
Neither Bergman nor the Grim Reaper’s fault, per se, especially when their collective Black Plague-set tumble into postmodern nausea is actually a great deal more laughable (in both senses) than Bergman’s most popular previous film, the morose and largely mirthless sex comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (to say nothing of the myriad Woody Allen bummers inspired by Bergman).