Presented in seven chapters, The Task focuses on four large group meetings, each of which includes all the 28 participants, three psychologists (or "consultants"), six camera operators, three observers-and Ledare himself, whose role evolves over the course of the conference. Throughout the film, the group's members grapple with the emergence of complex patterns of stereotyping and other projections of identity; authority is questioned, assumed, and then taken away; and viewers are implicated as the participants negotiate the subjective forces that exceed the structured constraints of the self-made system.