PERSONA (1966) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Ingmar Bergman Starring: Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Margaretha Krook, Jörgen Lindström
The thing I like best about Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" is how it's able to work on so many complex levels yet never separate themselves from one another. On one level, there's a story of two people represented two parts of the human psyche. On another level, there's a scathing portrait of method acting. On yet another level, there's a scathing portrait of films as mirrors of life. On even another level there's a tale of unity amongst different people. And there's even a level about the way we sometimes hide another an entirely different persona to escape from our own, as well as the world. There's probably a couple other levels this film works on that I'm not thinking of right now or haven't realized yet.
I like any film that has multiple levels that it works on, but it's so rare that a film is able to use all its different levels so that they all work with one another. Every level benefits another level, like cinematic puzzle pieces, all interlocking with one another to form a large portrait. Sure, I enjoy a film like "2001: A Space Odyssey" where there are several levels it can work on, even if they don't work with one another, but when I see a film like "Persona" where it works like this, I just have to give it much more respect.
"Persona" is a baffling, confusing, and sometimes even confusing piece of surrealism that often makes little sense until much later. The underlying story is very simple: an actress, Elisabeth (Liv Ullmann, in her first Bergman film), suddenly becomes catatonic during a performance of a play she's in, and is sent to be cured by a nurse named Alma (Bergman regular, Bibi Andersson). The two retreat to a head nurse's summer home on a secluded island, where Alma tries to get Elisabeth to talk and open up as she talks her head off, eventually opening so much to her that she exposes her deepest secrets.
It would seem from this description that "Persona" could be a long, boring, foreign retread of "The Miracle Worker," the story of Helen Keller and how she learned to communicate. But Bergman's way too existential for that. He not only takes the story somewhere, as well as adding a ton of depth (personal and universal), but he really makes it into a big experience. Watching "Persona" is hypnotic, not only because it demands full attention of the audience to what everything means, but because it's so well directed, and so gorgeous to look at.
>From the first shot, "Persona" grabs our attention, doing so by throwing us a curveball. The film shows us lots of random images (including a couple shots from his older films), such as a man having a nail pounded into his hand, and a camera starting up, and eventually arrives at a shot of a boy laying down on a bed, watching a film on a giant screen. At first, this seems overly self-indulgent (and you know how much I love self-indugency), but later makes sense with the rest of the film, as the film ends with a film projector turning off, and even has a middle part where the film splices, and picks up in the next scene (Bergman apparently thought this was an opportune place to put this, as he had no clue how to end the scene - it works).
The film ultimately shows us how film attempts to mirror life, but kinda fails, mostly by showing the relationship between Alma and Elisabeth, which at first seems like Alma giving everything over to Elisabeth willingly, but later turns into Elisabeth acting as a parasite, taking everything she can from Alma, but at the same time giving a bit back. She basically attempts to become a carbon copy of Alma, coming off as only a bizarre version of her as she attempts to study her so that she can become a better actress. Otherwise known as method acting.
The two eventually become one person, existentially forming two parts of one person's psyche. Watching their merging is one of the greatest cinematic experiences in awhile, as the film uses original and fascinating techniques to show this development. At one point, the two sort of embrace and form one body...at another point, each face is divided in half and then placed side-by-side to show how much they resemble eachother. In fact, Bergman got the idea for the film, or at least the idea of who to cast, when he saw both Ullmann and Andersson in public, and realized how much they look alike (the one main difference between them is their respective hair lengths). Bergman even goes as far as to show one scene twice, from two different point of views, to show how they each react to one situation.
Bergman only makes it better as he makes it a surrealistic experience. Often a fan of showing things through realistic dialogue and action, "Persona" shows that his knack at creating surrealism makes his points come much more alive, and the result is a film that not only demands a second viewing, but makes it a pretty pleasurable experience. Watching, say, "Through a Glass Darkly" twice is a bit of a chore, but "Persona" is one of the most chilling, disturbing, and even erotic films to ever be made. The entire film is beautifully shot by Bergman's favorite cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, who makes every shot compeltely gorgeous, and well set-up, so that the film resembles a dream. Bergman knows that film is not a good way of interpreting reality, that it's really an art form, and by filming it in such a fashion, he makes his point come across in an incredibly competent and rewarding fashion.
The best scene in the film comes about half way, where Alma, having become more comfortable with her silent partner on the island, tells her of a time when she cheated on her husband with a young boy while nude sunbathing on a beach. Bergman uses as few shots as possible, and only lets her words come across. It's a long scene, and it's even more amazing that he's able to sustain such a high level of eroticism for so long, making it possibly the most erotic experience ever put on film, and proving the fallacy that Steven Soderbergh would make over 20 years later in "sex, lies, and videotape": speaking about sex is much more erotic and satisfying than actually having sex.
That this works with the rest of the film, in that it portays a mirror image to the situation just like the film is a mirror image of realty, makes the film much better, as it probably would have lost some steam due to such a high increase in eroticism. The film is able to hold a long hypnotic spell the entire time, blowing its audience away with a bizarre opening, and able to hold onto their attention for the entire 81 minute running time. There are a ton of great scenes - where Elisabeth panicks after watching the tape of the Buddhist monk burning himself in protest to the Vietnam War (or: the cover of the one Rage Against the Machine album); where the two have a big fight; where Alma discovers Elisabeth's letters - but they all work with one another, and every scene has the exact amount of surrealism that it needs, making the film one of the best cinematic experiences of all time. Simply put.
MY RATING (out of 4): ****
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