Review of Persona (1966) by Gregory W — 19 Mar 2010

I sat down to witness the first film I had ever seen by Ingmar Bergman (now a perpetual favourite) having simply read in my college library that it was one of the most powerful and complex films of all time. It is, in fact, a film within a film. Or, perhaps I should say, a film within a film within a film. Lets just say it's complicated! When a movie opens with a hightmarish dream sequence in which a film reel starts to wind up, a goat is bled out, old cartoon nightmare sequences appear, dozens of setting changes assault the viwers perception, a spider crawls, and an erect penis is vividly illuminated, it's clear that you will be anything but bored. The opening sequence is like witnessing the cogs and mechanics of life start to turn and cognate. The nightmare images come to climax with one of the great cinematic images, that of an lost child actually living in what appears to a morgue inside the psyche of Elisebeth. It is a frightening depiction of a character almost arrsstingly introverted and self-contained and of the universe of the bizaree that you've just booked yourself into.

The plot opens up, in time, with the real world. Space and symmetry are crucial to Bergman's films, as is voice. Here. the distance between Alma and Elizebeth is paramount, as is Elizebeth's frightening mute status. Elizebeth is a famous actress that has sustained an injury during a performance and can no longer speak. Her being an actoe is crucial as she is unfeeling and anaesthethised, can only feign human sense. Alma, a naive but genuine nurse assigned to her care is infatuauted by her. She takes it upon herself to reveal all to her strange new friend in the abscense of conversational reply. Bergman's brilliance can even fing=d symmetry and beauty in cold, sterilsed hospital ward shots that seem hollow yat cranial and lively. She is simple, but beautiful and genuine. Alma means "soul" in Spanish. She is the heart and endearment of the piece, offering Elizebeth time in her cabin to recupperate. Although Elizebeth has no serious mental or physical impairment, she doea not speak for the opening half of the film, showing only feigned expressions as Alma goes deeper and deeper into herself and her curious, unwarrented confessions.She is almost Elizebeth's surrogate voice, perhaps the embodyment of the inner child at the opening. In a terrifyingly graphic monologue, she reveals how she became pregnant during unusually casual group sex at a beach, aborting the child without telling her lover. Elizebeth seems irritatingly withdrawn and obstinate, but affectionate. It is the later discovery by Alma diary entry in which Elizabeth cruely mocks Alma's honsty that proves the turning point for the film and marks it's descent into a calculated madness.

Alma, furious, demands that Elizabeth speak. Finally, she gets her to utter a shreek of pain having thrown boiling water on her. The plot becomes disturbing and much more layered. Elizabeth's husband mistakes Alma for her, we are starting to belive them to be symbiotic and interchangable (maybe even the same person.) Elizabeth's sweetness for Alma unravels, Alma wishes to punish her. She has abandoned a husband and chils due to complete apathy, lack of human feeling. This is a covetous and apathetic character, feeding off of and living vicariously through the feelings of others. Alma proclaims famously: "I am not Elizabeth Vogler!" Elizabeth is a liar, concealing herself. In other words-she has been mute her entire life, even when speaking. On more than one occasion the film returns to dream scapes and even back to the hospital, the idea may be that the whole film is fabricated-a preformance. The images of relection, cold and opaic rock, and the waterfront are among the best I've ever seen in film.

In one of films best ever endings, as Alma leaves the cabin, the camera pans over to reveal a film crew (intented to be the crew shooting the film) shooting the sceen. It appears almost as a mistake, as if the camera panned too far but it's far too cognative and brilliant for that. The idea is that this is a film within a film, transcending the medium graciously to illucidate the message about human empathy versus apathy and the importance of the self and dignity in the face of self-honesty. Sweedens best film?? Perhaps. See it, figure it out, and see where you stand.