Sommarlek (aka Summer Interlude) (1951)

A successful ballerina (Maj-Britt Nilsson) receives a diary during final dress rehearsals for SWAN LAKE. The diary is from the young boy who was her first love 13 years earlier. As she takes a trip to the island where they first met, she reflects back on that fateful summer. Ingmar Bergman had been directing films for about five years when he came to SOMMARLEK, not yet the Ingmar Bergman. While SOMMARLEK is a lovely memory piece, I somehow doubt we'd be much concerned with it today if it weren't directed by Bergman. It's main interest lies in the seeds the Artist is planting which would be harvested at the decade's end. As a romantic melodrama, is it that much different than what Sirk was doing at Universal or Negulesco doing at Fox in the 1950s? There's a potent central performance by Nilsson as the ballerina who does a superb job as the emotionally closed ballerina in her late 20s and the giddy teenager in the flashbacks. One can't help but notice how the island in SOMMARLEK is warm and inviting in direct contrast to the later bleak islands of his THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY or PASSION OF ANNA. I guess that about sums up the difference between the young Bergman and the mature Bergman. With Alf Kjellin (Minnelli's MADAME BOVARY).