Summer Interlude (Criterion Collection)

Touching on many of the themes that would define the rest of his legendary career-isolation, performance, the inescapability of the past-the tenth film by Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal) was a gentle sway toward true mastery. In one of the director's great early female roles, Maj-Britt Nilsson (To Joy) beguiles as Marie, an accomplished ballet dancer haunted by her tragic youthful affair with a shy, handsome student (Thirst's Birger Malmsten). Her memories of the rocky shores of Stockholm's outer archipelago mingle with scenes from her gloomy present, most of them set in the dark backstage environs of the theater where she works. A film that the director considered a creative turning point, Summer Interlude is a reverie on life and death that bridges the gap between Bergman's past and future, theater and cinema.