Summer with Monika

A Swedish film set in Stockholm. Harry works in a warehouse. He carries glassware and his boss shouts at him constantly. Monika works at a vegetable market. The men there harass her and she answers back. The two meet in a café. Monika wants to get away from home. Her father drinks, the flat is crowded, and nobody leaves her alone. Harry's father has a boat. One day both of them walk off their jobs. They take the boat and leave the city. From there the film takes place among the islands. The summer is long. They swim, they lie in the sun, they fish, and they plan nothing. The food runs out. Monika steals from a house. The narrative holds this section long and makes it genuinely beautiful. Then the weather turns. Rain, cold, and the boat is small. Monika is pregnant. They have to go back. They find a small flat in the city. Harry takes a job and goes to evening classes. The child is born. From there the film's second part tells something else. Monika does not want this life. She cannot stay in the flat, does not look after the child, and goes out. Harry works, and when he comes home the place is a mess. What the narrative is interested in is not love but continuation: its idea is that a summer cannot be sustained, and that the two of them understand it without ever saying so. One scene looks straight at the camera. Sitting in a bar, Monika turns and looks at the audience, and goes on looking for a long time. That look has been much discussed in the history of cinema. Harriet Andersson was twenty. The film had censorship trouble in Sweden and was cut abroad, released under different titles and marketed as an erotic production. Gunnar Fischer shot it. It was filmed in the Stockholm archipelago. Harriet Andersson, Lars Ekborg and Dagmar Ebbesen are in the cast. Ingmar Bergman directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Swedish cinema and narratives built on youth. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a sympathetic character; the narrative does not present Monika as a heroine and defends neither side.