Hets (1944)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Alf Sjöberg

Writer:

Ingmar Bergman (writer)

Release Date:

2 October 1944 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Jan-Erik Widgren is a high-school senior. His Latin teacher, Caligula, is feared by everybody, both teachers and students...

Plot Keywords:

Latin | Graduation | Sadist | Teacher Of Classical Languages | Teaching

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Stig Järrel	...	Caligula
Alf Kjellin	...	Jan-Erik Widgren
Mai Zetterling	...	Bertha Olsson
Olof Winnerstrand	...	The Headmaster
Gösta Cederlund	...	Pippi
Hugo Björne	...	The Doctor
Stig Olin	...	Sandman
Olav Riégo	...	Mr. Widgren
Märta Arbin	...	Mrs. Widgren
Jan Molander	...	Pettersson
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hilda Borgström	...	Caligula's mother (scenes deleted)
Anna Olin	...	Aunt Elisabeth (scenes deleted)

Also Known As:

Frenzy (UK)
Torment (USA)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

Sweden

Language:

Swedish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:A | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Svensk Filmindustri, Filmstaden, Råsunda, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company:

Svensk Filmindustri (SF)

Trivia:

The Latin teacher Caligula is based on the Latin teacher Sjögren in Lågor i dunklet (1942) also played by Stig Järrel.

Quotes:

Caligula: Cheating, my good sir, cheating!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Svart Lucia (1992)

One of Bergman's bleakest, most affecting screenplays, under some dizzying Sjoberg direction

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.