7/10
Bergman Comes of Age
24 June 2016
While waiting for the night rehearsal of the ballet Swan Lake, the lonely twenty-eight year-old ballerina Marie receives a diary through the mail. She travels by ferry to an island nearby Stockholm, where she recalls her first love Henrik.

Bergman later reflected, "For me Summer Interlude is one of my most important films. Even though to an outsider it may seem terribly passé, for me it isn't. This was my first film in which I felt I was functioning independently, with a style of my own, making a film all my own, with a particular appearance of its own, which no one could ape." Indeed, this is a landmark film for Bergman. We see his early use of "summer" as a recurring theme, his stark use of black and white that would define him for a generation... and even the use of "Swan Lake", which may prefigure his love of "Magic Flute" in some way. Bergman brought a visual style to film I have never seen elsewhere and never will. He is the master, and it all begins with "Summer Interlude".
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