Smiles of a Summer Night
Somebody calls this movie a mix of Schnitzler and Strindberg (who I have never read anything from, but now I’m curious!), and I am not sure if I can agree. Schnitzler has always focused on very few characters in his dialogues and to me, the whole movie really looks like a re-interpretation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
There is something about “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that is absolutely fascinating me, but I never knew what it was. “Smiles of a Summer Night” seems to explain one of the reasons: A love comedy with a large cast of different and amusing characters: Desirée is an intrigant woman, Egerman is completely powerless in front of what is happening about him, his son and wife are the innocent children and Malcolm – oh God, Malcolm – is what comes the closest to a Schnitzler-esque character, except that for Schnitzler, an overly jealous character like him is realistic where for Bergman, they are mostly ridiculous. Even comical side characters are present in the form of Petra and her future-to-be-husband.
I find it very amusing that every synopsis explains the plot differently from what I have seen: for example “Anne repulsed her husband” (I don’t think she did, he mostly was the one who thinks she is scared of him, but really we never actually see that) or “Frederik is still in love with Desirée” when he actually goes length explaining how much he loves his wife.
The best thing about this movie itself is that it touches many subjects in life, it’s mostly a movie about life and relationships, and as such it goes much deeper than the original “Midsummer Night’s Dream” story. There is the son who cares about religion, Malcolm who is mostly a military laughing stock and we see how all the characters love in their own way. Concerning the dialogues, the best characters are those who are more ‘evil’ (such as Desirée, Malcolm, Desirée’s mother, Petra and partially Charlotte), because they have more to say. Their witty comments on life and especially love life are splendid, and perhaps that is where the comparison with Schnitzler comes from. Of course I would prefer to believe that somebody’s feelings cannot be so easily swayed by some smart set-up as it happened in this movie, but it’s always very amusing to see that in a fictional story.
I noticed that I have not commented on Bergman at all – so the truth is that I find myself impossible to do so. First of all, I realize that I barely know anything about him, and with the exception of some details (religion, setting and certain characters), this is not exactly a movie that oozes Bergman-ness if I may say it that way. (Is it because Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson are missing in this movie? XD) But hey, it has enough of your usual Bergman brilliance that it inspired Woody Allen’s “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy”!