After the Rehearsal
Ingmar Bergman’s “After the Rehearsal” appears as straightforward and uncomplicated as a tape recorded conversation, but look at the jungles of interpretation it has provoked among its critics. I believed I knew what the film was about when I left the theater. Now I am not so sure. Like many other Bergman films, especially those that fall into his spare “chamber” category (“Winter Light,” “Persona“), it is about simple surfaces hiding unfathomable depths.
So let us begin with the surfaces. The action takes place on a stage set up for Strindberg’s “A Dream Play.” An old director sits in the middle of the props; every chair and table reminds him of an earlier production. The rehearsal ended some time ago, and now he simply sits there, as if the stage were his room. A young actress comes back to the stage for a missing bracelet.
But of course she doesn’t really want it; she wants to talk to the great man, maybe make love with him (as, perhaps, she knows many actresses have over the years). The old director was once her mother’s lover. This girl could even be his daughter by that woman. They talk to each other across several layers of tested affection. Then an older actress enters she has a few lines in the play and wants to know if her career as a leading actress is really finished because everybody knows she’s a drunk. She cries, screams, bares her breasts to show this old man that they are still solid flesh beneath all the gin and vodka.
The director is tempted: He may have been this woman’s lover too; certainly her daughter was his child for at least part of their relationship together on Earth
The young girl remains on the stage for the extraordinary performance of the older actress. After she leaves, the director and ingenue talk again, and this time the old man, who has loved too often and been hurt too much, talks to her about what will probably happen between them: We could make love, we could have an affair, we would call it part of our art, you would be the student, I would be the teacher, I would get tired of you, you would feel owned by me; all our idealism would turn into ashes. Given that it is inevitably doomed from the start then why bother?
Just in terms of these few lines of conversation and passion “After The Rehearsal” is a significant confession for Bergman (who has had relationships with many actresses including Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann among others; his daughter by Ullmann appeared in “Face To Face“). But this film doesn’t tell us anything scandalous about him; more like sacramental confession where Bergman son of a Lutheran bishop now sees his stage as being his confessional and asks us (the public) to bless/ forgive him because he knows that taking advantage over others might be one among other faults brought upon themselves by people like him who wield power through intellect rather than physical force.
If only ‘After The Rehearsal‘ were so simple! What Bergman does here is surround a straightforward narrative with riddles. Just like in “Persona,” where some scenes showed characters exchanging personalities while engaging in fantasy or dream sequences (which may not have been), there are parts of this story that will leave us scratching our heads.
For example: according to previous reviews Anna never left stage during Rakel’s monologue but another critic thought entire thing was director’s dream. Another suggested Anna represents both herself & absent daughter or maybe Anna IS daughter between these two people who create her out of an unfinished love affair a sort of theatrical Holy Spirit. Anna has been variously reported as 12-20 years old, one critic even claimed there were two different ages portrayed by same character.
What is the right interpretation? All of them. The truth is that every single one is equally correct. Otherwise, what’s the point of a dream play? After all, it’s not about finding the literal meaning; it’s about getting to the soul of the director and figuring out what still hurts him after all these years. And there are many years to choose from.
There was a year when he slept with eight women in six days, another year when he didn’t sleep with anyone for 12 months. There was a year when he told a woman that she was pregnant with his child (she wasn’t), another year when she told him that she was pregnant with his child (she wasn’t). But through all those lies and truths and messy affairs, there’s always been one area where he feels guilt and passion: when Anna tells him she’s pregnant.
He’s furious. How could she a young actress given the role of her life jeopardize her career and his play by getting pregnant? But then she tells him that she’s had an abortion, for the sake of the play. And now he is really torn in two, because he doesn’t think not even now that a play (not even his) is worth a life.
Yet what “After the Rehearsal” leaves us with is an artist who has sacrificed many lives for art but wonders if perhaps one of those lives was his own.
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