Smiles of a Summer Night

After fifteen films that received mostly local acclaim, the 1955 comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) at last ushered in an international audience for Ingmar Bergman.

In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction. During a weekend in the country, the women collude to force the men’s hands in matters of the heart, exposing their pretensions and insecurities along the way. Chock-full of flirtatious propositions and sharp witticisms delivered by such Swedish screen legends as Gunnar Björnstrand and Harriet Andersson, Smiles of a Summer Night is one of cinema’s great erotic comedies.

About the Ingmar Bergman Centennial

This fall, theaters across the greater Boston area will celebrate the 100th birthday of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman with a collaborative retrospective of his work. Together the Brattle Theatre, Coolidge Corner Theatre, and Harvard Film Archive will be hosting over 30 screenings of the filmmaker’s work.

No name is more synonymous with the postwar explosion of international art-house cinema than Ingmar Bergman, a master storyteller who startled the world with his stark intensity and naked pursuit of the most profound metaphysical and spiritual questions. In a career that spanned six decades, Bergman directed dozens of films in an astonishing array of tones, ranging from comedies whose lightness and complexity belie their brooding hearts to groundbreaking formal experiments and excruciatingly intimate explorations of family relationships.