Scandinavian films of the 1950s and 1960s such as Bergman's Summer Interlude and Summer with Monika and Bo Widerberg's Love 65 broke taboos by telling tales of innocence lost with a furtive, seductive charm. As any enthusiast of these films knows, summer holidays on the archipelagos are the idyllic setting for such calme, luxe, et volupté. In Matti Kassila's Blue Week the brief affair between an impetuous young man and an older married woman is tinged with pleasure and regret. Cinematographer Osmo Harkimo bathes the lovers in a sensuous luminosity which fades with the arrival of the woman's disabled husband who demands her constant ministrations. Toivo Mä;kelä; gives a memorable performance as the middle-aged man who provokes a sense of unease by gazing on the lovers with melancholic awareness. "Matti Kassila (is) unquestionably the talent of his generation. His films vibrate with a sensuality that emerges not so much from the landscape and summer setting as from deep within the human personalities themselves." (Peter Cowie)