While it’s Wild Strawberries, Persona and Fanny & Alexander that hog space on critics’ polls, this 1953 drama about a young love that turns sour was reputedly Ingmar Bergman’s most widely seen film in America. Why is not hard to figure out: having noticed star Harriet Andersson’s willingness to take her clothes off, an enterprising producer rid the film of its most depressing bits and marketed it as a proto-nudie named Monica: The Story of a Bad Girl. Now that’s how you make a hit.

Screening this week at the Bloor in a new print (and with the depressing bits back where they should be), Monika remains one of the master’s most vital and engaging early features. The film’s take on youthful rebellion and sexual freedom also seems particularly prescient, though Bergman being Bergman, he’s arguably more interested in what happens after the relationship between the titular 17-year-old wild child (Andersson) and her besotted beau Harry (Lars Ekborg) cracks under new pressures. Then again, fun wouldn’t be fun if it weren’t so ephemeral.