Quand la chair est faible

"June Night" has a delicate, lyrical quality that tempers its melodramatic premise. A pre-Hollywood Ingrid Bergman shines as the troubled femme fatale Sara, making it easy to understand why men can't resist her. A compelling story, fine acting, and beautiful cinematography make "June Night" well worth seeing-- and it's got to have one of the loveliest endings in film history!

We are fortunate that this wonderful vision of the young Ingrid Bergman, aged 25, is available with English subtitles. Her shimmering beauty and shining presence, together with her brilliant acting abilities, make this film a treasure. This was the last film she ever made in Sweden, and in Swedish. After that she migrated, like one of those rare birds who flies for thousands of miles to feed or to breed, to America, where she effortlessly became a Hollywood star. For those who like to know such things, I should record that the original Swedish title of this film is JUININATTEN. It was directed by the very talented Per Lindberg, who died only four years later at the age of 53, thus cutting short a promising career. There is no biographical imformation about him on IMDb apart from his dates of birth and death (both in Stockholm) and his screen credits. This one has been preserved because Ingrid Bergman is in it. His sister Stina Bergman (unknown whether her husband Hjalmar Bergman was related to Ingrid Bergman, but in any case he had died young in 1931) wrote the screenplay for the Swedish film A WOMAN'S FACE (1938), in which Ingrid Bergman played the lead role. Hence it is certain that the star and director of JUNE NIGHT knew each other very well long before they worked together. The film is based on a novel by Tora Norström-Bonnier (1895-1991), authoress of many novels as well as being the Swedish translator of E. M. Forster and Eugène Ionesco, among others. Ingrid Bergman in this film plays a lonely educated young woman, whose parents are dead and who has no family, from an obscure country town who becomes involved with a sailor. He becomes obsessed by her and when he fears she is leaving him, he intends to commit suicide in front of her but changes his mind at the last minute and shoots her instead. The bullet is one inch from her heart and she is saved in an operation by a miracle and has a long recovery. Meanwhile the affair has been exposed in the Stockholm press and has caused a local scandal, so she leaves her home town which she hates anyway and moves to Stockholm under an assumed name. She shares a flat with two other young women. Because her health is in permanent danger and she needs to be monitored, she visits a doctor sometimes. A young and handsome doctor falls in love with her and pursues her. But the sailor who shot her is released early from prison and finds her in Stockholm, causing a scene and plenty of stress, which gives her a heart attack. And then a journalist recognises her and wishes to expose her publicly. I shall not reveal the ending to this melodrama. The film should be seen by anyone interested in Ingrid Bergman, because she is simply irresistible.

Sometimes I wonder what critics and movigoers think first whenever Ingrid Bergman comes up on screen. Is it we think about her beauty first then talent or is it vice versa. Watch the last 15 minutes of the film and you'll know what I am talking about. I dont think even those close ups of her Casablanca or Notorious can top that. Whenever the lights on that face we can help but lost in the image.

The movie itself wasn't so good. Very slow and I was almost dozed off myself. I found myself pity with the Asa character, she was caring, selfless, unselfish and good-hearted. The lead actor was quite handsome and charming. I dont like the ending. Abrupt and unrealistic. Would you run off with someone you know less than 24 hours? I dont know, this is Ingrid Bergman we're talking about.

JUNE NIGHT / Sweden 1940 (2.5 STARS) 16 December 2003: Through the divine Ingrid Bergman is at her prettiest best (we can see why she was lured away to Hollywood very soon after this her last film in Sweden), I could not understand her character's motivations in this film. . Mise-en-scene: The film starts dramatically with a shoot-out and the rehabilitation that follows. There is intensity in the character's motivations and her crisis is real. I was amazed at how modern Stockholm was way back in 1940. . The Stockholm community, though lovable has been created more with an eye to theatrical platitudes than to portray real people. Despite this we enjoy their little shenanigans and feel for their individual wants. But by the time we get to the end, we no longer feel the connect with any of the lead characters. It is not so much the fact that we despise Bergman's character for the choices she make as it is a lack of the director's ability to build a real person with real motivations - good or bad. . Cinematography, Editing & Sound: In contrast with Casablanca made only two years later, the technical finesse is lacking and the sound and editing look more rookie, though none of that stopped me from wondering at how modern Swedish cinematic language was at that time when few other nations were ready to experiment with morality quite in the same way as were the Swedish, way back in the 1930s.

June Night (1940) is an amazingly sensuous movie at times. Evidently behaviour, public morals, were changing, and the transition was a bumpy business for all, young and old, eager and able vs past-it and grouchy.

Bergman plays Kerstin, a provincial young woman who is shot by a jealous lover. She survives but is treated so shabbily in court that one almost wants to laugh, it feels so different from what you'd imagine would happen today (but then what do I know, maybe Sweden hasn't changed so much?). She tries to start again in Stockholm under a new name, but a woman as fascinating and alluring as Kerstin can't avoid attention, suspicion, jealousy, being misunderstood. It's only a matter of time before something else happens, right?

It's striking how temperamental everyone else, how impulsive, how childlike in their emotional outbursts. The movie reminds one of the glamour imparted by the chiaroscuro of black and white photography. Oh you see so many examples now, online, of colorised b/w movies, thoughtlessly achieved by a generation obsessed with technology and achieving hits, and utterly blind to aesthetics or good taste. Remind yourself of what has been lost by seeing this film.

The scene between Olof Widgren and Ingrid Bergman is one of such tantalising mutual attraction that you virtually will their lips to come together in a kiss. The June night of the title is presumably Midsummer, the night when everyone goes a little crazy, or so it seems. Decisions are made and must be faced up to when the sun comes up. Feelings are destined to be hurt.

One could take issue with the plausibility of someone surviving a bullet to the chest, or the strange old man boring on about the Saturnalia, or the abrupt ending (devoid of melodrama), but I'd say there's a realistic emotional truth to the story, and of course one cannot take one's eyes off Bergman. She could be one of Dostoevsky's heroines, fragile, glacial, determined, seductive and cruel, all within minutes of each other. It feels almost like this film was a springboard for both of them, the actress and her character.

A midsummer night's predicament then.

Recommended.