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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Binding: DVD
EAN: 5023965339423
Format: PAL
Number Of Discs: 1
Sales Rank: 113480
Theatrical Release Date: February 06, 1956
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Released in 1953, Monika, an early Ingmar Bergman-directed melodrama, did much to establish the reputation of Swedish cinema, and perhaps Swedish women in general, as leading the vanguard in sexual liberation. The film attracted the wrath of the censors and one scene of lovemaking had to be cut. While subsequent generations will look at the film and wonder whatever the fuss was about, it retains a vivid and frolicsome sensuality, before submitting to the inevitable Bergman bleakness.
The film tells the story of a young couple, Harry (Lars Ekborg) and Monika (18-year-old Harriet Andersson, with whom Bergman would fall in love), stuck in lousy jobs in Stockholm. Harry is beset by parental responsibility--his mother died young and his father is ill--while Monika is fed up with her drunken, violent father. They escape in a motorboat to spend a blissful summer on an island in the archipelago. Once Monika gets pregnant and they're forced to steal food, however, the idyll concludes and they return to Stockholm, where the relationship disintegrates. Visually ravishing, Monika would have a deep impact on French New Wave cinema. --David Stubbs
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Viva Harriet Andersson!
No creature in filmdom has embodied smoldering sensuality as well as Harriet Andersson. A must see!!!!!!
Rating: - A lesson of love: the Swedish answer to Rebel without a cause!
This picture finds a very young Bergman (still in his 34) dealing with a very agile and fascinating psychological portrait of a family who is passing through a very serious affective and emotional crisis. With a great doses of humor, Bergman draws an admirable semblance of the youth (through Monika `s character) as well as the identity crisis of a married woman who must decide between the well known marriage `s traditions instead of follow her primary instincts with a renowned sculptor.
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Rating:  - Sommaren med Monika
This 1953 film is available on region free Tartan DVD from amazon.co.uk as "Summer with Monika" (almost directly translated from the original title "Sommaren med Monika".) It's an OK edition, worth obtaining especially for Bergman fans. The film is also available on NTSC VHS as "Monika." Renaming the title of this film yet another time as "Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl" is just ridiculous. Even if the studio that will provide this DVD is going to be Criterion, I will certainly have to think twice ... Read More
Rating: - monika
monika is yummy. i have to say. in the beginning of the film, she is so infectous & as she & her lover run away for a summer on some unnamed swedish inlet, the growing cuteness is unbearable.
then, she gets pregnant, the dream grows fuzzy, and is replaced by a new one.
the doom & gloom they inevitably stumble upon is caught by slow, beautiful shots of the water, and always by monika's luminous face.
enchanting.
Rating: - wonderful movie
This is a beautiful film about youth and love and loss. The acting is great. Harriet Anderson as Monika is gorgeous. The Swedish title translates as "A Summer with Monika." No doubt the Puritan American censors had to put "bad girl" in the American version's original 1955 title to keep up their record of stupid hypocrisy. One of my favorite Bergman pictures.
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