The women-type Rut does exist, and it is so excellently portrayed in this movie that I dare saying: In his later movies, Bergman was hardly ever so honest. However, this is not the basic tenor of this movie, the question is: What is this glue that holds a relationship together? At the end, Bertil says to himself: Yes, I'm in hell with her, but being alone would be much worse. - Hell is only one stadium before self-abolishment, but not itself.
Rut is a drinker, and therefore, Bergman's title "Törst" is at least not exclusively metaphoric. As a very young girl, she had a relationship with a married and much older man. Her pregnancy would possibly be classified as due to rape in certain environments. During abort, she lost her fertility. By her lack of intelligence, she cannot cope with her second husband, a university professor. Thus, she is quite unclear about her function: She cannot be mother and neither partner (partner in what?). During her drinking she floods away her bad memories, but only with the result that they come back with even greater intensity. She is addicted to little signs of love. If he caresses her on the mistaken side of the face, the catastrophe is programmed. She is able to condemn him with an avalanche of the worst vocabulary, and to apologize begging and whining for what she just said two minutes later. Her husband also realizes that she flirts with death: f.ex. he follows her in the corridor of the train and listens when she is in the bathroom.
This early movie is already a typical "Bergman": existentialist down to its "pores", asking a lot of question and letting the answers to the watcher.
Rut is a drinker, and therefore, Bergman's title "Törst" is at least not exclusively metaphoric. As a very young girl, she had a relationship with a married and much older man. Her pregnancy would possibly be classified as due to rape in certain environments. During abort, she lost her fertility. By her lack of intelligence, she cannot cope with her second husband, a university professor. Thus, she is quite unclear about her function: She cannot be mother and neither partner (partner in what?). During her drinking she floods away her bad memories, but only with the result that they come back with even greater intensity. She is addicted to little signs of love. If he caresses her on the mistaken side of the face, the catastrophe is programmed. She is able to condemn him with an avalanche of the worst vocabulary, and to apologize begging and whining for what she just said two minutes later. Her husband also realizes that she flirts with death: f.ex. he follows her in the corridor of the train and listens when she is in the bathroom.
This early movie is already a typical "Bergman": existentialist down to its "pores", asking a lot of question and letting the answers to the watcher.