One of the internationally acclaimed films which signaled the revival of Swedish film in the 1940s, TORMENT is probably the best remembered film helmed by one of the directors most responsible for the revival, Alf Sjoberg (THE ROAD TO HEAVEN, MISS JULIE). It was also the first script
written by the then 26-year-old Ingmar Bergman, who also served as assistant director. It tells of hard-working student Jan-Erik (Kjellin) and his affair with hard-drinking young widow Bertha (Zetterling). The couple are pitted against the wicked Caligula (Stig Jarrel), a teacher at Jan-Erik's
school, and the level of his involvement with Bertha has surprising and tragic consequences.
TORMENT doesn't pull its punches in its scenes of passionate seduction or grim melodrama, and yet it retains a certain innocence which only makes its study of adolescent despair and its indictment of authoritarian education the more effective. Jarrel gives a chilling performance in a role
consciously modeled after the infamous Nazi Heinrich Himmler. Zetterling and Kjellin garnered international acclaim and attention for their work here. An interesting pointer to Bergman's later thematic obsessions. leave a comment
