Sommaren Med Monika (aka Summer With Monika) (1953)

Two young teenagers, she (Harriet Andersson) is carefree if immature while he (Lars Ekborg) is more practical, are stuck in boring jobs. Together, they run off to spend a romantic summer amid a secluded island area but as the summer ends, their idyllic romance gives way to the harsh realities of the everyday world. This early Ingmar Bergman work features the marvelous Harriet Andersson in the first of her nine films with the Swedish director. Her Monika is one of those free spirits who captivates us in the beginning but who we soon tire of when we see their "true" nature. It's to her credit that Andersson (and Bergman, of course) allows us to empathize with her while not condoning her reprehensible behavior. It's a bittersweet pill of a movie and while an excellent example of early Bergman, it's still a pretty conventional film (though daring by 1953 Hollywood standards) that lacks the complexity of the master artist that would soon emerge. Edited down to a little over an hour and released in a dubbed exploitation version called MONIKA, THE STORY OF A BAD GIRL, it was America's introduction to Ingmar Bergman. Mention should be made of Ekborg's fine work which often gets lost amid the justified praise for Anderssson. With John Harryson and Dagmar Ebbesen.