The director's mea culpa for choosing his art over his family life.
After the Rehearsal (1984)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 9
Fresh: 8
Rotten:1
Average Rating: 7.8/10
Runtime: 72 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Although initially intended for the small screen, AFTER THE REHEARSAL was Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's final film to be released theatrically. (He went on to write several scripts and direct... Although initially intended for the small screen, AFTER THE REHEARSAL was Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's final film to be released theatrically. (He went on to write several scripts and direct for stage and television.) Henrik Vogler (Erland Josephson), an aging director in the process of staging a production of August Strindberg's A DREAM PLAY, remains in the theater alone one night after a rehearsal has taken place to reflect on his life and career. He is subsequently joined by young ingenue Anna (Lena Olin), who seems to have romantic designs on him, and later by Rakel (Ingrid Thulin), a former lover of Henrik's and possibly Anna's mother. Although rather modest in scale--this is a film with one set and essentially three actors--the philosophical ramifications of this short (just over 70 minutes) Bergman feature on the nature of art and the artist's creative dilemma are typically far-reaching. It is almost impossible not to conclude that the womanizing Vogler represents Bergman himself, who, like his alter ego, was romantically involved with several of his longtime leading ladies. [More]
Starring: Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, Lena Olin
Starring: Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, Lena Olin
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Ingmar Bergman
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Reviews for After the Rehearsal
Although After the Rehearsal is blessed with three superb performances (especially Thulin, as a has-been actress who attacks the director for having abandoned her), it is trapped in its staginess.
What we are left with at the end of After the Rehearsal, however, is the very strong sense of 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.
Ingmar Bergman's own little Tempest in a teapot... Hardly light material, but it's pretty frisky stuff for Bergman.
Reveals the intricate dynamics of male-female sexual dynamics and leaves us more convinced than ever of the bittersweetness of human love
A stark and haunting conclusion to Bergman's main period that combines an intelligent approach to weighty issues with the director's visual flair.
There is something liberating in the very schematism of the project: he no longer needs to pretend that his mouthpieces are real people.
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