The Blessed Ones

Bergman’s first feature after abandoning 35mm film for television technology, The Blessed Ones is a tale of tortured love between a middle-aged woman and a slightly younger man, and the jealousies that arise from their outward differences and internal melancholies. The schoolteacher Viveka ekes out a life, seemingly keeping on through sheer willpower; the failed theology student Sune barely has even that. A chance meeting provides them both with new hope and new love, one that must still overcome each lover’s self-loathing. Brutally candid, The Blessed Ones is “a melodrama reeking of both sulphur and perfume” (Dagens nyheter).