The Rite (1969)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Film Review

The Rite is one of the most bewildering, confined and darkest of Ingmar Bergman's films, made at a time when the director had the confidence and the motivation to push the boundaries of his art and explore some radically new approaches to cinematic art.   As in his earlier experimental films - Persona (1966) and Shame (1968) - The Rite addresses metaphysical, societal and humanist themes within the framework of a minimalist, highly stylised drama.

The central issue of The Rite is the way in which professional actors relate to and are treated by their audience - an idea that Bergman had previously touched on in his 1958 film The Magician.  The Rite can be interpreted in a wider sense as an allegory of how human beings relate to one another in general.   To paraphrase Shakespeare, each one of us is an actor on a global stage.   Every encounter we have with another person is, effectively, a piece of improvised theatre, an act in which we decide what part of ourselves we choose to reveal.

The idea for The Rite came to Bergman shortly after he had completed his three-year tenure as director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in the late 1960s.  He resigned because he had had enough of the on-going criticism which made it increasingly difficult for him to pursue his artistic vision.  The Rite was effectively Bergman's attempt to exorcise his accumulated antipathy for critics and unsympathetic audiences.  The creepily surreal, slightly bonkers, sequence at the end of the film, where the three actors get even within the eternally questioning judge, is clearly intended to represent Bergman's tongue-in-cheek desire for revenge on his audience, yet is also symbolic of the judgement that will come to any man who judges others too harshly.

The film was made for Swedish television, on a modest budget (it was shot in just nine days), and broadcast in March 1969.  Whilst the ambiguous nature of the plot and characters is somewhat frustrating, making it initially appear much more opaque and intellectually demanding that it actually is, The Rite is a strangely tense and compelling film, with a mischievous note of black comedy running all the way through.   It explores some intriguing themes and, whilst it may not be Bergman's most accessible film, it is every bit as fascinating and thought-provoking as some of his more celebrated works.

Film Synopsis

Three members of a theatrical troupe are brought before a judge, charged with committing some unspecified act of obscenity.  Hans, the troupe leader, is the most mature and restrained of the three actors.  Thea is his wife, a neurotic who is having an affair with the third member of the group, Sebastian.  It is the latter who is the most dangerous and unpredictable of the three - impulsive, lustful, indebted, and contemptuous of everyone and everything.   In an attempt to get to the truth, Judge Abrahamson questions each of the actors, but these interviews merely cause him to look inwards on his own life.  In judging them, he realises he is judging himself...