PERSONA Movie Review

A famous actress (Liv Ullmann) decides that she will stop speaking, and is treated by a lively, talkative, forthcoming nurse (Bibi Andersson) at a secluded cottage. As they learn more about each other and their relationship turns increasingly tense, the women's personalities begin to merge and they become psychologically—and perhaps physically—indistinguishable. Much of Ingmar Bergman's Persona has the form of an experimental film. The opening sequence shows a movie projector's light flickering to life, and begins the story proper only after we've seen a young boy looking through the screen at us, while a slightly hazy image of ourselves as the audience is visibly reflected in front of him. Like the rest of the film, it's suggestive of the sensation of stepping outside one's self and observing the world through a proscenium—or screen—while we remain detached and disconnected; the elements of a mental breakdown. Bergman touched a great but maddeningly elusive pinnacle of his art with Persona, a brilliant, 88-minute Rorschach test that moves. It's about the importance of language—whether that language be vocal or cinematic—and about the inherent limitations of ever being truly intimate with either a mate or an audience. Beyond that, as in a true Rorschach, it's about whatever you see in its suggestive, galvanizing images, and whatever you hear in these conversations about the need for silence to ward off both war and the risk of sexual abandon. It's great, and it's too much. Bergman knew it, and brought persona to a close with the image of film slipping out of its sprockets and spilling out of the projector, followed by silence and darkness. For him, as for his voluntarily mute protagonist, there is a moment at which feeling is so strong that communication—like a circuit breaker—shuts down. Like any truly inspired artwork, Persona will spark new interpretations and vigorous arguments for years to come. Named one of the ten greatest films of all time in a Sight & Sound international critics’ poll.

NEXT STOP … The Silence, The Passion of Anna, L'Avventura

1966 100m/C SW Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Margareta Krook; D: Ingmar Bergman; W: Ingmar Bergman; C: Sven Nykvist. National Society of Film Critics Awards ‘67: Best Actress (Andersson), Best Director (Bergman), Best Film. VHS, 8mm MGM, VYY, VDM