Another sexy story from Ingmar Bergman? Are we sure this is the right Ingmar Bergman? This farce, set primarily on the shortest night of the year at a turn-of-the-century country house, finds four mismatched couples chasing the wrong partners until everyone is properly sorted out and forgiven their initial lustful follies.
That’s true of both the younger pairs of lovers (including Summer With Monika star Harriet Andersson) and the rueful, mature ones, too. The spirit of gentle, erotic playfulness, which seems to belie the grim and weighty tenor of Bergman’s later work, makes the film a delightful diversion, one picked up later by Stephen Sondheim as the basis for his musical A Little Night Music.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwSjE34RNNU]