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"Torment" from 1944 is a Swedish film directed by Alf Sjoberg with a screenplay by Ingmar Bergman. Bergman also directed the last scenes, which were put in later when the producer rejected the original ending.

Jan-Erik Widgren (Alf Kjellin) is a young student under the thumb of a sadistic Latin teacher, known by all the students as Caligula. Everyone is afraid of him. Interesting that this is based on some of Bergman's own experiences, as he hated school and hated the institution of school.

Jan-Erik believes that one day he will meet a chaste woman with whom to share his life, though his friend tells him it's impossible, all girls are tramps.

He starts talking with a pretty young woman (Mai Zetterling) who works in a nearby store. That night he sees her drunk on her way home, and he helps her. They have an affair, but she has another lover - she fears him and she's apparently afraid to leave him because of that fear. He's also a terrible bully.

Meanwhile, graduation is drawing near, and as Jan-Erik has his affair and tries to study, his chances for graduation aren't looking all that good. Then something happens that nearly destroys him.

Very good film, exquisitely photographed in black and white. Also, there is not a ton of dialogue. It almost could be a silent. I found the last scene absolutely beautiful.

I remember the star, Alf Kjellin, as an older character actor on shows like "Mission Impossible." Here he is very striking, tall with high cheekbones and an angular face. Mai Zetterling, who is only about 19 and very pretty in this film, is excellent as the tormented woman. She had a good career doing stage work in her native Sweden and then making films in Sweden, Britain, and America. When she turned to directing, her films were sexually liberated and were met with some controversy. She had big affairs with Tyrone Power and Herbert Lom. Her biography is fascinating.

Both give strong performances.

Stig Jarrel as Caligula was a very versatile, fine actor, and here he plays a real demon. He's frightening, like a snake poised to strike. His last scene is extremely powerful.

This film is definitely worth seeing, even though it's not perfect and not a masterpiece. Still, it's effective, with some strong images.

Torment is most recognised as the screenplay debut of young Ingmar Bergman. And while there are signs of a script-writer who had more than great potential, Torment does deserve to be known for more than the debut of one of the best and most influential directors in film. For it is a very fine film indeed. It looks great, with gorgeous photography and evocative scenery. Alf Sjöberg's direction is clever and sustained, while Bergman's screenplay has both its dark and affecting moments and shows great thought and insight. The story does show signs of a chilling atmosphere, affecting melodrama(without being overly so) and also of a writer early on in his career showing what he could do while developing it to even greater heights later on in his career, the film is always involving pacing wise and the character development is subtle while always making the characters interesting. The music has moments where it is too intrusive but is overall hauntingly-composed and fitting, while the acting is marvellous, especially from Stig Järrel and Mai Zetterling. In conclusion, very, very good. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Torment, one of the first winners of the grand jury prize at Cannes, brings forth Ingmar Bergman's first screenplay to fruition (he was only in his mid twenties when he wrote it). Although it might not be apparent, as it is an early work and it would be another dozen or so years before his true cinematic high-watermark, it is the work of an already gifted writer, in tune with what drives drama. It's sometimes hard to make moving drama out of school-life, but Bergman gets it right in that he focuses it on three characters (with the occasional stern but really good-hearted older professor character). Our protagonist, filled with enough inner conflict and aimlessness, is Vindgren played with great ambivalence, fear, and subdued passion by Alf Kjellen. He gets mixed up in a romantic affair with a woman, Bertha (Mai Zetterling, seductive even as being vulnerable) who feels abused and need some compassion from him. But, as it goes with such a practically bleak and (dare I say) naturalistic story, things are not good for either one.

Bergman and the wonderful director Alf Sjoberg, get a terrifying performance (albeit if it is sometimes two-dimensional, or maybe not) by Stig Jarrell, who plays Vindgren's manipulative, "old-school" tormenting teacher, who also happens to be attached, so to speak, with Bertha. The link drives Vindregn into the kind of despair that makes the film, in the end, really work. There's also something very curious about how the script is so precise, so dark and occasionally shocking for a film from 1944 sometimes in the guise of a romantic melodrama. Bergman knows these characters, so much so that what occurs at the least stays true to what is known to be their characters. Change occurs slowly, if at all, and with the professor especially there is a great kind of push and pull that Jarrell does- at times he's like a little puppy trying to get sympathy for 'being sick', but it's all just a guise.

Torment, in the end, is an excellent, near-great film about what it's like for the "rotten apple" of the bunch. Vindgren isn't a bad kid, but the pressures from schoolwork (nearing graduation no less) on top of his seeming love-affair with a woman more scrambled up by her relationship with the professor, things boil over. The last twenty minutes are at times totally heart-wrenching, reaching the depths that Bergman would plunge even further to with his masterpieces in the 60's and 70's. But Sjoberg goes just at the limit, which is a plus and minus, as he tries to make it appealing for the period (with Hidling Rosenberg's musical score quite fitting at times), with some interesting, expressionistic lighting techniques that add that fine coat onto the subject matter. That Bergman/Sjoberg also make the regular school-scenes believable, and even put in some interesting bits with supporting characters (the nerdy kid has a couple of good scenes, though the scene stealer is the teacher-to-teacher talk where the good tries his best to face down the bad), is of equal merit.

In short, Torment, what first set off the little spark for Bergman's career (and likely provided Sjoberg with one of his best films) is worth looking for, if at the least for Bergman fans wanting to check out all of his films, but one may find it to be one of Bergman's most searing early works.

Widgren isn't fond of his high school, the Latin teacher always makes him look a fool, just a few weeks now to go, he can escape the tyrant foe, run off with his girl, enjoy life, and be cool (he's suffering teen angst and distraction with a lack of concentration).

Caligula works at just such a high school, he teaches Latin and he follows all the rules, but out of site he is quite shady, a touch psychotic, definitely crazy, has his sights set on a girl he'd like to rule (There's a reason certain individuals take up a particular practice, and it isn't because of a passion for the profession, several of which spring to mind).

Bertha has a pest who's in pursuit, an unstable and a volatile brute, though she's just met a new beau, but the foe's not letting go, though for now her lips are sealed and she stays mute (who's going to believe her story after all).

When those in authority over others, both formal and informal, take advantage of the situation to cause misery and torment. A familiar story that traverses most times and ages and doesn't seem to be waning too much today.

In contrast with his best friend at school, who cites Strindberg's and Nietzsche's cynical views on women, Jan-Erik Widgren considers himself an idealist, who believes there's a chaste woman out there for him. But the adolescent schoolboy's first love proves to be a loose girl he finds stumbling around drunk one night. They become lovers, even though she has another man in her life - a man she says bullies and torments her. Meanwhile, Jan-Erik is poised to fail at school, thanks to a sadistic schoolmaster - a browbeating teacher of Latin whom all the boys refer to as Caligula.

The title sequence promises a thriller, and there are sequences that seem prepared to fulfill that promise; but it never quite pans out. The story never quite pans out as satisfactory drama either, despite some acute observations by the wiser characters and good performances from everyone. Ingmar Bergman's script comes off like gleeful revenge against an actual schoolmaster he knew.

The best thing about the movie is the gorgeous black-and-white photography from Martin Bodin, under Alf Sjöberg's direction, filled with sinister shadows of domineering figures and clutching hands and low angle shots revealing shadow-strewn ceilings.