Customer Reviews

Torment [VHS]

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When I first saw this movie, it was labeled "INGMAR BERGMAN'S TORMENT," marked all over as "His directorial debut!" To be fair, this movie is an Alf Sjoberg work, and you can tell right from the opening scenes. To see Bergman's "directorial debut," you can catch the last 30 seconds or so, when an absentee Sjoberg handed over the reigns to the ambitious, if callow, Bergman. How much of this work deserves Bergman's name? The screenplay, though that was altered by Sjoberg too, and thats about it.

Its a shame that this work has been so over-publicized. Ostensibly, it couldn't be a more auspicious project: a collaboration of two of Sweden's greatest film-makers (we can lament the fact that Sjoberg's fame has so faded over time, for he really was a talented film-maker). Unfortunately, it can be written off as an opportunity missed. The film was being made for Svenski Film's anniversary and seems to have been somewhat hastily, maybe dispassionately, put together. This isn't Sjoberg's best work by a long shot, even for its few gem moments. The writing is harmlessly mediocre; an angst-ridden story about a tortured student intellectual. Clearly its a film Bergman must regret, for the brilliance of his later writing is little evident. It has a flavor of Bergman, but the most immature of all of his writing.

The plot centers around a young woman who keeps two lovers: one, the chief protagonist, a bright young student full of youthful idealism: the other one of his instructors, whom we only know as Caligula -- a lonely old man who lashes out and torments every human who he comes in contact with. Eventually, and predictably, the two come into conflict.

Torment is not a bad film by any measure, but one can't help but be disappointed by it. It should be of some interest to both Sjoberg and Bergman fans. Mild recommendation.

First screenplay by Ingmar Bergman. Main character played by Alf Kjellin who directed a few Columbo episodes in the seventies. A student falls in love with a prostitute who is mentally tortured by a sadistic teacher. Bergman's obsessions are already present in this 1944 movie.

This feature is notable as the first screenplay written by Ingmar Bergman. It's only a pity that the direction by Alf Sjoberg is so plodding. It's easy to read the hero as Ingmar, a sensitive student played by Alf Kjellin who writes and plays the violin (he's creative) and is misunderstood by his parents. We see him singled out by the sadistic Latin master affectionately known as "Caligula" (his real name is never given) who teaches by intimidation and carries a stick in class. When Alf befriends the girl in the cigar store, Mai Zetterling, we can predict that she is also Caligula's "lover". It's probably because Mai is so tortured that Alf is attracted to her. The screenplay brands her of "questionable reputation" and only Alf is able to see beyond this shaming judgment. And we know she has a good heart since she lives with a kitten. The kitten reveals character. Caligula holds it as he tells the story of a cat he drowned, it's claws having to be surgically removed from him, while Alf plays with it when Mai attempts a seduction. The story of the drowned cat is a gothic Bergman touch in a screenplay which provides some enjoyable comaraderie between the schoolboys, a dream sequence, and a surprising depth for the latin master. Caligula is both terrifying (is it a coincidence that he is made to resemble a Nazi?) and pitiful, yet still unlikeable. I particularly liked how he comes back to Alf with a coded threat, after he is warned by another school master. There are 2 unnecessary and melodramatic exisential comments - "Why did this have to happen to me?" and "How could you?" which betray Bergman as a fledgling writer, but also a delay in Mai telling Alf of her victimisation by Caligula, and even when she does speak of it, her details are unexpectedly non-specific. The school itself is as big as a museum, and Sjoberg gives us images of the large population running up and down levels. And Alf's family reside in an affluent looking apartment. Bergman doesn't tell us much about them, but their conversatism is established for Alf to react against. Sjoberg must be congratulated for not making Caligula's torment of Mai like a horror movie - if anything the horror is implied rather than shown - and the class scenes of students pressured to recite latin come across as far more stressful. Sjoberg doesn't utilise the close-ups Bergman would later employ, which therefore distances us from the characters, and one can overlook the seemingly advanced age of the schoolboys if one considers how they grow em big in Sweden. Note Bergman's own voice as a radio announcer.