Bergman 100
- Smiles of a Summer Night
- Sommarnattens leende
- Sweden1955
- Ingmar Bergman
- 108 DCP
- PG
Screening Dates
- March 8, 2018 9:00
- March 9, 2018 6:30
- March 10, 2018 8:20
“Exquisite … Boudoir farce becomes lyric poetry … A nearly perfect work.”
Pauline Kael
Bergman’s belated international breakthrough came with his sixteenth feature, a sophisticated comedy of sexual manners inspired by Mozart, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Renoir’s Rules of the Game. The film—Bergman’s finest comedy and among his best and most influential works—is set at a turn-of-the-century country estate, where eight men and women have been invited for a summer weekend. A riotous round of sexual intrigue and deception ensues, as couples variously pair off, break up, and exchange partners. The movie won a special prize for “poetic humour” at Cannes, much to Bergman’s surprise. A Little Night Music, Steven Sondheim’s 1973 Tony-winning musical, was a Broadway adaptation. Bergman’s next feature was The Seventh Seal.
“Wonderfully funny, genuinely erotic, and quite superbly acted.”
Tom Milne, Time Out