elvircorhodzic SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHTS is an intelligent, honest and very funny comedy about complicated love relationships between men and women.One prominent lawyer, who is faced with problems in his marriage, requires the help of his former mistress. The famous and beautiful actress wants her former lover. The young man, who was on his way to becoming a priest falls in love with his stepmother. One officer wants to be a good husband and a better lover at the same time. His wicked wife wants him for herself at all costs. There is also a naughty little housemaid who knows her way around an old coachman.This film is full of witty romantic incidents. Philosophic conclusions are attractive and they reflect with a certain elegance. The director skillfully presented a conflict between young (inexperienced) and mature (experienced) form of love. The series of personal complications makes up for the content of the film. This leads to a series of comic situations, criss-crossed love and even explicit scenes. Despite the cynical views on love and sexuality by Mr. Bergman, the end of the film is still happy and all the protagonists are "satisfied".Characterization is commendable. Men are strictly "pompous" figures, while women are sweet and impressionable. Male dignity is exposed to a „serious" satire.Gunnar Björnstrand as Fredrik Egerman is elegant, tough and cunning lawyer. Jarl Kulle as Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm is fun, a bit self-centered and arrogant officer. Ulla Jacobsson Anne Egerman is beautiful and even more naive young wife. Eva Dahlbeck as Desiree Armfeldt is a impatient mistress and a single mother. Harriet Andersson (Petra) is lively and merry maid and Åke Fridell (Frid) is a coachman who explains to us the existence of three types of love on a summer night.This is a playful comedy in which love conquers frustration and tragedy turns into farce.

TheLittleSongbird While not quite one of my favourites from the supreme Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, Smiles of a Summer Night is still a film that I was captivated by and would wilfully see again. Not that there is anything wrong with it, actually there is little if anything to criticise, just that there are so many good Bergman films out there and I do have slightly more of a fondness for the more moving, haunting and a little more thought-provoking if not as accessible films of his like The Seventh Seal and Cries and Whispers. Back to Smiles of a Summer Night though, I think it is well worth seeing for the title alone, which is one of those touchingly poetic ones. But that is not the only reason to see the film. It is very elegantly made with beautiful scenery and cinematography and Bergman's direction is superb. The music is sweet and lilting, the story is swift and charming and the writing is both thoughtful and funny. The leading ladies are not just sexy but they are all great actresses and prove so in their roles, in particular Eva Dahlbeck who is appealingly mischievous and Harriet Andersson who is in a different role to Through a Glass Darkly and Cries and Whispers(which called for a darker and more poignant style of acting) but her sensuality really shines through here. Overall, extremely good. 10/10 Bethany Cox

johnnyboyz Bergman's Smiles on a Summer Night is a delightful and mild-mannered comedic effort studying love and the different natures of relationships those of opposing genders go through with one another in regards to feeling strongly for the opposite sex. It is quite the engaging piece observing the webs and complications created once one person's feelings for another takes over, a film balancing those whom are married with former girlfriends they cannot rid their feelings of; with young men wanting to begin relationships; with married women whom feel for younger men despite being indirectly related to them, to name but a few. It is quite the involving, rather scathing film looking at people rich in attitudes towards culture and finer things but utterly devoid of any kind of sensible or moral outlook on sexual relations; a quite brutal comedy covering people sneering down at those of a generational difference below, despite those of whom occupy such a space are infinitely the more well-natured and humanist amidst all the other fatuity.The film begins with a lawyer named Fredrik Egerman (Björnstrand) occupying his decorated office, a rich space inside of a large and rich manor house in Sweden. From the manner in which his general location is decorated with props and items, we can tell the man has a substantially large amount of money and appears both regimental and thorough in his business, particularly when the time comes to speak to his younger son Henrick (Bjelfvenstam) who's a piano player; is studying to become a priest and has feelings for both his mother-in-law Anne (Jacobsson) and a young house-servant called Petra (Andersson). Egerman has tickets to an opera that evening, instilling a sense of high-culture about the man further embedded when it is revealed he will be watching a former girl friend of his within the show, suggesting previous exposure to those working within an industry of such high-end culture. Furthermore, the actress he was once in a relationship with unfolded not so soon after a previous wife died thus implying a mentality of the man as one that enjoys the company of women.Frederik observes this actress-come-former lover Desiree Armfeldt (Dahlbeck) on stage, Desiree given a big build up as she lingers off stage by the characters within the play further-still characters within the film, dialogue to do with the power she has over most men complimenting what will later transpire in the film as a whole; her appearance on stage is greeted by an array of applause and she is the focal point of everybody's attention. Fredrik meets her back-stage, his once stiff and regimental demeanour made to look somewhat false as she bosses him about in her dressing room and later comes to look down and laugh at him at his drenched figure having fallen over once outside into a large puddle. Their relationship and knowing of one another will come to form a great part of Bergman's film. Cause for concern arrives in the form of a count named Carl-Magnus Malcolm (Kulle), a man of militarian profession; Desiree's current lover and a man whom verbally reiterates his credentials when it comes to conflict and disagreements when he talks of his rich and successful history in dueling and fighting; he's also pretty handy with a fruit knife and barely even reacts to a gentleman (in the form of Fredrik) standing there wearing not much in his lover's dormitory such is his professionalism. He clashes with Frederik when Carl-Magnus finds him in Desiree's back-stage dressing room, and Bergman frames them in profile with Desiree's beaming figure standing between them highlighting what, or who, it is they are essentially clashing over, face to face.The film is deceptive in its initial beginning and surroundings, the film not so much about a love triangle involving Fredrik, this actress and her current lover as much it is about human nature's reaction toward love and firm relationships; the sorts of relationships people get into with those of the opposite gender and the vast characteristics and mannerisms that define these relationships as perpetrated by those enacting it. Some are forlorn and forbidden; some are comedic and rather quirksome, others are defined by one man's general attitude towards women and its consequent points during which violence threatens to burst into life as a result of said separate attitudes. Bergam balances scenes of great drama and tension with that of lighter, fluffier content rather well; all the while maintaining focus of the film's core thesis and doing well to engross us in the different stories and strands each of the bevy of characters find themselves caught up in.

Myshkin_Karamazov Bergman made many films, this one made him."Smiles Of A Summer Night" is a landmark in the Solemn Swede's carrier. Most recently it made the All-TIMES 100 list of best films compiled by renowned film critics Corliss and Schickel for Time Magasine. As late as in an interview recorded in 2003, Ingmar Bergman agreed to call "Smiles Of A Summer Night" a watershed in his film career. "After its success", he recalled "I had my hands free... I was able to do whatever I wanted to do." Truly enough, he went on to make, in immediate succession, such great films like "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries". And it was only the beginning of what best can be described as Bergmansk phenomenon. "The Virgin Spring", Through A Glass Darkly", "Persona", "Cries and Whispers", "Autumn Sonata", "Fanny and Alexander". One true classic after the other was bestowed upon us by this undisputed grandmaster of the world cinema during the course of his rich, fruitful career.With superb acting, lively dialog and impeccable cinematography, "Smiles" leaves nothing to be desired. It seems to be a happy story, at least from the audience's point of view.Still, the director recalls, in his published memoirs, how depressed he was being stuck with the script, how bad he felt during production, and how embarrassed he was to find out about film's great success at Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix. All this was unprecedented for the producers, the Svensk Filmindustri as they responded "like an old lady who never knew to waltz, now suddenly being asked by a variety of cavaliers", to quote Bergman.