Review of Persona (2000) by Edith N — 23 May 2013

Even Ingmar Bergman Had to Live Through the Sixties.

It's not that Bergman wasn't always experimental in one way or another. However, most of how he experimented was storytelling. In this film, he spends time experimenting with imagery in a way that seems very dated to me. I think he was a bit ahead of the curve with some of how he did things, though most of the film of that decade that I actually watch is considerably more mainstream and less experimental overall. To be perfectly blunt, visually experimental films tend to bore me. I feel that, in general, they don't put enough effort into things like plot and characterization. Of course, that wasn't the case with Bergman, because he was always interested in plot and characterization. However, the jumble of images that starts the movie triggers something of a kneejerk reaction from me. It reminds me of too many movies that were all like that; part of Bergman's mastery was in understanding that you couldn't do that for ninety minutes.

One evening, while performing the role of Electra, Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullmann) fell silent for an entire minute, explaining when she got offstage that she had been seized with a near-irresistible impulse to laugh hysterically. The next day, when the theatre called to find out why she hadn't come in for rehearsal, they found out that she was in bed neither moving nor talking. She was sent to the care of a doctor (Margaretha Krook), who made a series of psychological pronouncements and sent her to the doctor's own summer house by the sea along with a nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson). Alma is younger, inexperienced, and engaged to a man with whom she does not appear to be in love. She fills Elisabeth's silence with a torrent of words, revealing things she had never spoken of before because she fears the silence more than she fears showing herself. In her words, she also begins to reveal Elisabeth.

It's not completely accurate to refer to Alma as inexperienced, of course, as one of the film's most famous scenes makes quite clear. One day, while on vacation with her fiancé, she and a friend had sexual contact with a pair of strange teenage boys whom she never saw again. It is a story she has never told before, and one rather suspects that she didn't even talk about it with the friend. When she tells the story to Elisabeth, I suspect that at least half of it is that she needs to stay the words aloud, to make the story real in her own head. Another part of it is doubtless a belief, perhaps unconscious, that surely [i]this[/i] will make Elisabeth talk, but she isn't completely talking to Elisabeth anyway. She is talking to herself, and Elisabeth is the silence into which she drops her words. She is, however, a responsive silence, something more than just saying the words to herself in an empty room. Alma uses Elisabeth to make the experience of her past real to her, because she has shared it with someone else.

Because Elisabeth does not talk, we cannot know how much of her Alma is actually managing to reveal. She has a long monologue about Elisabeth's reaction to pregnancy and childbirth, and from mere facial expressions, it seems that what she says is true. However, because we do not and cannot get Elisabeth's version of the story, it is possible that she is in fact upset that someone would think that of her. It is possible that she thought that, silence or no, Alma ought to have known her better. They have been spending all their time together for weeks at that point, and completely alone at that. Either Alma found her way inside Elisabeth's mind or she didn't. Either Elisabeth is hurt by Alma's revelations because of their truth or because of their falsehood. We don't know, and we will never know. In fact, it's an interesting question as to whether Ingmar Bergman himself knew if it was true or not. I assume he did; he seems to be that kind of person. But of course we can no longer know that, either.

Whatever causes Elisabeth's silence, there is little to be done about it. It isn't anything physical, and Alma is not equipped to help with psychological problems. I think having her write letters, as time passes, is a mistake. It advances the plot to the next step, true, but a better way should have been found. She should not be communicating at all, because if she can communicate, there is a way into her mind. It becomes better for her to be with someone trained in psychiatric care, which Alma clearly is not. As long as she isn't talking to anyone, letting anyone into her thoughts, there is room for her thoughts to be whatever people think they are. Once she starts writing, she has room to contradict. In fact, that's what sets off the next crisis with Alma; Alma thought she was revealing herself to someone perfectly safe, and it turned out that she was wrong. But why would she not suggest that Elisabeth just write down what she had to say?