Synopsis
The Rite (Riten, 1969) is the chamber drama by Ingmar Bergman you can watch online on iFILM. Made for Swedish television, it runs a tight 72 minutes and lives almost entirely on four faces in bare rooms. Three stage actors are summoned before a magistrate after a performance is judged obscene, and the court wants answers.
The questioning stops being legal almost at once. One by one, the judge draws out the troupe's neuroses, grudges and hidden shame — and exposes his own in the process. Ingrid Thulin, Anders Ek and Gunnar Björnstrand work with no real set: a close-up, a silence, a voice. Bergman himself shows up briefly as a priest. It's harsh and claustrophobic, made for viewers ready to take late Bergman with no easy way in. Stream The Rite (1969) online on iFILM.
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