About
Smiles of a Summer Night

Considered Bergman’s international breakthrough, yet I honestly think The Seventh Seal deserves that claim more fulsomely. This is more just a mishmash of soon-to-be institutionalised themes, and then some; a mess of ideas and technique running the gamut from screwball, slapstick, existential and bourgeoisie comedy of errors, as well as romance, satire and theology. Not to say it all doesn’t make for slight, caustic entertainment, but at most it remains a curiosity, a frivolous farce preceding far more engaging auteurist works.