CINSSU Free Friday Films: Summer with Monika and The Green Ray

The Cinema Studies Student Union (CINSSU) have planned a program of Free Friday Films over the summer, though not all of the films will screen on a Friday. 

Inspired by the earthy eroticism of Harriet Andersson, in the first of her many roles for him, Ingmar Bergman had a major international breakthrough with this sensual and ultimately ravaging tale of young love. A girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg) from working-class families in Stockholm run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it is not long before the pair are forced to return to reality. The version initially released in the U.S. was reedited by its distributor into something more salacious, but the original Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika), presented here, is a work of stunning maturity and one of Bergman’s most important films. 

Éric Rohmer captures the ache of summertime sadness with exquisite poignancy in this luminous tale of self-exploration, the fifth film in his Comedies and Proverbs cycle. The Jules Verne novel of the same name provides the loose inspiration for the story of Delphine (Marie Rivière), a dreamy, introverted young secretary who, reeling from a breakup with her boyfriend, faces the prospect of spending her summer vacation alone. As she bounces from Cherbourg to the tourist-choked Alps to the sunny beaches of Biarritz, Delphine passes through a whirl of social activity—but remains profoundly alone, as true human connection continually eludes her. As honest a portrait of loneliness, depression, and the longing for understanding as has ever been committed to film, The Green Ray is one of the most piercingly perceptive works by French cinema’s keenest observer of human relationships.

The screening will take place on Friday, July 8th at 7 PM in Innis Town Hall. Both films would be presented in DCP format. It is free and open to the general public with masking required.