Film Review: After the Rehearsal - 40th Anniversary

"After the Rehearsal"

**** (out of ****)
 
"Everything can happen, everything possible and probable. Time and place do not exist; on an insignificant basis of reality the imagination spins, weaving new patterns; a mixture of memories, experiences, free fancies, incongruities and improvisations." 

August Strindberg, A Dream Play

For me this quote from A Dream Play is the secret to de-coding Ingmar Bergman's "After the Rehearsal" (1984), a surreal mediation focused on love, life, death, the arts, and the blurry lines between fantasy and reality.

It is not unlike Bergman's previous work, "Fanny & Alexander" (1983), a five hour mini-series for Swedish television, that was edited down to three hours for theatrical release. It was intended to be Bergman's swan-song. Many interpret that movie to be about childhood (I don't). The film is named after two young siblings. With "After the Rehearsal", also a film for Swedish television, Bergman has reversed it. It is now an elder stage director faced with mortality and personal demons. A previous relationship with an actress seems to be utmost on his mind.

I've watched "After the Rehearsal" three times in my life. The first time as a teenager, deeply under Bergman's spell. The second and third time were recently, preparing for this review. I picked up on things I hadn't in my youth but I'll be damned if I know what is real and what is fantasy in the film.

The older stage director, Henrik (Erland Josephson) discusses the upcoming production of A Dream Play - the director's fifth adaptation - with the young actress, Anna (Lena Olin) alone in the empty theater, after a day of rehearsal. They sit and discuss many things - some involving the play and others not - there up on the stage among many props. Is this Bergman's way of telling us all of life is a stage? The director and the actress are products of the theater. Living for and consumed by it. They too are props. And so the audience never knows what is part of the play and what is real life? When they speak on the stage, how does the audience know what is a performance and what isn't? That most likely is Bergman's intention. As a theme it fits in nicely with the great filmmaker's cannon of films. Vincent Canby, movie critic for the New York Times put it this way in his review of the film, "That is, the vantage point of the artist, nearing the end of a long and very successful career, for whom his art - the theater and his work in it - is life and everything else has the effect of illusion."

During their conversation we learn Anna is the same age as Henrik's daughter and Anna's mother was an actress who worked with Henrik. Anna goes on to reveal she hated her mother, who is now deceased. These words seem to pierce Henrik. Anna's harshness turns Henrik inward. He is shocked by her lack of sympathy. He becomes lost, gazing out at the empty theater for his own confession, "At my age you lean forward and your head is inside another reality. The dead are not dead, the living are like ghosts. What was obvious a minute ago is queer and obscure."

It is around this time I believe "After the Rehearsal" unveils itself as a story all in the mind of Henrik. Anna is a concoction his mind has created to represent both Rakel (Ingrid Thulin), an actress he once had an affair with, and the possible daughter she may have had.

For me this interpretation of the film is further solidified when Henrik explains the "silence of the stage" to Anna. "Listen to the silence" he says "Imagine all the mental energy, all the feelings, the laughter and rage and passions. It is all still here. Shut in. Living its secret, continuous life. Sometimes I hear them. I imagine I see them." All of this will play out by the end of the film. We will see moments of rage and passion and laughter. These are the ghosts, haunting Henrik. Like Isak Borg in "Wild Strawberries" (1957), Henrik will have to relive and confront painful moments from his life. But, unlike that old professor from "Wild Strawberries", Henrik can use the theater and the arts to express his pain.

Much is made in the film of authenticity. Of characters being able to sincerely express themselves and their feelings. In the film they call it giving a "private performance". The idea of an actor always being "on". Anna mentions to Henrik once when her parents were fighting, her mother threw in a line from a play. In a moment of anger the daughter tells the mother, "Don't put on an act. It's a waste of effort". This leads the mother to breakdown and declare, "This is the only way I can express myself. Real or unreal. I suffer and I'm lonely."

It is at this moment another character enters the stage. It is Rakel. Anna now sits silently, never looking at the Rakel or Henrik, only blankly staring forward. Neither Henrik nor Rakel at this point acknowledge Anna's presence. What is the cause of Anna's behavior? Rakel flirtatiously suggest to Henrik they make love. He rejects her offer. Why would the woman speak so freely in front of Anna? Are we to assume at this moment, this Anna's mother? Did Henrik have an affair with this woman? If this weren't surreal enough the next time we see Anna she has been transformed into a child. We can further ask, if this is a dream, whose dream is it? Anna or Henrik's? Is Anna imagining a private conversation her mother and Henrik may have had? Does she suspect Henrik is her father?

Once Rakel leaves the stage we are back to Anna (transformed back to an adult) and Henrik. The tone of their conversation changes. Soon Henrik reveals he is jealous of a man Anna is living with and becomes momentarily heartbroken after she confesses to be pregnant with a child. I can only interpret this as Henrik transposing Rakel and Anna into one. Nothing leading up to this moment has suggested Anna is living with someone. She shows no signs of being pregnant and there is not a hint of romantic interest between the two that would cause jealousy in Henrik.

In Roger Ebert's four star Chicago Sun-Times review of the film, Ebert believes this moment with the pregnancy reveal hits at the heart of the film. He interprets the film as Bergman's way of saying he sacrificed so much for his art above all else, describing Henrik as "an artist who has sacrificed many lives for the sake of his art, and now wonders if perhaps one of those lives was his own." If this is in fact the true meaning of the film, I believe another scene earlier expresses this more directly. Henrik is questioned about his treatment of actors and responds by saying, "In life, or let us say reality, many have been hurt by my rough treatment. And I by theirs."

Before watching "After the Rehearsal" I read Bergman's autobiography, The Magic Lantern. As I was watching the film my confusion began to heighten. So much of what was said in the film, I read in Bergman's book. I double checked to make sure I wasn't remembering a chapter devoted to this movie. I wasn't. The book isn't structured that way as a film by film remembrance. So many words and incidents from the book were repeated in the film. Henrik explaining when he first became aware of the magic of acting was in Bergman's book. As was a line about rehearsing with actors and what would happen if Henrik ever removed his "mask". And most strikingly, a story in the book about a time Bergman was working on an adaptation of A Dream Play and an incident that occurred when an actress, Lena Olin none-the-less informed Bergman she was pregnant!

This all lead me to wonder, how much of Bergman's life has found its way into his movies? The torment of having engaged in an affair was very much on Bergman's mind even in his later years. He did in actuality have several affairs. Bergman somewhat returned to similar material for the film "Faithless" (2001), which he wrote the script for and was directed by Liv Ullman, who was not only a star in many of his films but also the mother of one of his nine children. That film, while equally emotional and confessional, was a much more direct telling of an affair with fewer surreal moments.

"After the Rehearsal" is not remembered as one of Ingmar Bergman's great films. It seems as if some completely forgot its existence, insisting "Fanny & Alexander" was Bergman's last film theatrically released in the United States until "Saraband" (2005), a sequel to "Scenes From A Marriage" (1974). For no other reason that is why I wanted to honor it for its 40th anniversary. I have named dropped the film in some of my other Bergman reviews and did place it on my runner's up list of the best films of the 1980s. My appreciation for the film has only grown. I now view it as a deeply personal and self-reflective film. Bergman bares much of himself in this screenplay, leading me to completely agree with Canby, who ended his review stating this may well be another Bergman classic. Legendary critic Andrew Sarris took it a step further calling it one of Bergman's greatest films in his Village Voice review and named it the best film of 1984.

If there are flaws with "After the Rehearsal" it is the production values and the running time. Being made for TV the film doesn't look as polished as Bergman's theatrical films. And at a mere 72 minutes, it feels too short. These were also some criticisms Chicago Tribune  critic Gene Siskel had with the film when he gave it a thumbs down (!) rating on the television program, At the Movies.

Forty years later "After the Rehearsal" has lost none of its power. It is a more revealing look at the life of an artist and dedication to that art than any film made today. Sadly today we view the artist differently in society. Films like this have fallen out of fashion. How interesting though that in 1984 alone we had two absorbing films centered on an artists and their art. Milos Forman's "Amadeus" (1984) would be the other. Both would make my list of the best films of 1984.