Persona is a 1966 Swedish psychological drama written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. This avant-garde film is Bergman's strangest one and we can all agree that the Swedish genius has had his fair share of strange. Good strange, of course. Bergman had made some 20-odd feature films before Persona came along. So it’s fair to say he knew what he was doing and it wasn’t just the work of amateur experimenting by putting together random concepts. Even though he’s still one of the most misunderstood filmmakers in the world of cinema.
The story follows a young nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) who is appointed to take care of a troubled actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann). Vogler, who had suddenly stopped speaking, shows no signs of improvement, so the Doctor (Margaretha Krook) asks them to move to her beach cottage for a while. Their relationship slowly takes a drastic turn and soon Alma finds it difficult to distinguish between herself and her patient, Elisabet. Although both women are quite different from each other, their few similarities are so oddly convincing that they somehow become disturbingly indistinguishable.
Despite there being just two characters, there is not even one moment throughout the film where it felt as though an angle or a different perspective lacked. Both the characters are so well written. Liv completely dominates the film despite having no dialogue whatsoever. Her encouraging glances and the way she makes Bibi feel comfortable enough to go about her seemingly endless and embarrassing monologues are quite admirable. Liv’s facial expressions alone propel Bibi into confessing her deepest sins like a blubbering child would do to its mother heavy with guilt after stealing a toy from the mall.
We cannot talk about Persona without talking about the magnificent cinematography. Just like in most of Bergman’s films, Sven Nykvist outdoes himself in this one as well. Nykvist’s way of capturing things with a lens is so very expressive, almost as if his frames talk to every eye whose gaze lands on it. One of the prominent scenes has to be when Alma reads to Elisabet and the series of frames that follows somehow fits every word that Alma reads out despite the frames simply being the barren and rocky terrain of the beach.
The scenes of Alma and Elisabet’s chats are the exact opposite of the beach scene. The frames in the beach scene have ample light, I’d argue too much light, naked and vulnerable, like organisms exposed under the microscope. Whereas the scenes of Alma and Elisabet’s chats always have a lot of shadows. The scenes are shot with so much contrast, almost feels like they’re on a stage with the spotlight on them. Which is done with intent as they’re both acting as another persona. Nykvist’s cinematography certainly takes the show don’t tell aspect to an entirely different level.
One of the reasons Bergman’s films are special and have garnered the attention and praise they have is because his films explore everything from people’s twisted minds to a world without god and everything in between. His every film leaves you questioning things about yourself and the world you live in. Now that’s good directing. Once you watch a Bergman film, it never truly leaves you. And that’s terribly difficult to achieve. Another thing that always seems to be there in abundance in his films is subliminal messages. Especially, this one.
Surrealism is one of the major themes in the film. There is quite a bit of similarity in terms of themes and direction between Persona and Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel’s An Andalusian Dog. The introductory scene has a lot of random shots ranging from a nail digging into a hand to sheep’s slaughter. The ending scene too has a lot of similar shots along with a boy examining the glass behind which is a vaguely distorted image of a lady. It is perhaps how Bergman sees himself. A little boy and the distorted image of the lady is how he perceives and understands women.
We all live multiple roles throughout the span of our lives. We move from one persona to other. One role to other. But then, do we even have our own identity without these roles? Elisabet admits to just being. Alma, on the other hand, is not strong enough to admit that. Would you?
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