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.
