Torment

15 yrs 101 minutes • 1944 • 7.3

Torment, written by Ingmar Bergman and directed by Alf Sjöberg, is a marvelous depiction of a school where the Latin lecturer, "Caligula", keeps the students in horror. Jan-Erik is the one he has appointed as the victim, but other students are exposed to his ill-tempered mania as well. Jan-Erik gets to know a young girl named Bertha and he finds that she is also one of Caligula's victims. Bertha has in her solitude and despair begun to drink and the situation is stepped up when Jan-Erik one day finds her dead. The film, which won the Grand Prix prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946, is according to Bonnier's major film guide considered to be a groundbreaking Swedish classic.