Ingmar Bergman goes poaching on the terrain of Renoir, Lubitsch, and Mozart. This 1955 film is his lightest and most appealing, but the light touch doesn’t come naturally to the Brooding Swede; a few of those smiles feel uncomfortably forced. Eva Dahlbeck is wonderful as the aging actress who hosts a summer party on her country estate—she seems much more responsible for the film’s gently wise tone than Bergman’s heavily telegraphed ironies. With Harriet Andersson, Ulla Jacobsson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, and Margit Carlquist. In Swedish with subtitles.
Smiles of a Summer Night
1 hour 48 min • 1955