Persona

• 
  
  October 23, 2009

  SirPant

  This is possibly the most beautifully directed film I've ever seen. The black and white photography is sublime, the performances are amazing, especially from Bibi Andersson who's performance is incomparable. The conclusion of this film was highly original of its time and has been...( read more) Imitated many times since, some good, some excellent but none are quite as hauntingly beautiful as Persona. An absolute masterpiece and a must see!!

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• 
  
  March 13, 2009

  her69eyes

  "Persona" is perhaps not a film that should be reviewed after just one viewing. It's a film that spins a web of mysteries - one that begs repeated viewings to either solidify your opinion or change it entirely. From the opening sequence of a projector lamp lighting up and reveali...( read more)ng a series of disturbing images, to the infamous film "burning" that occurs late in the film, it's a film that demands to be studied.
  
  The film centers around Elizabeth (Liv Ullman), a stage actress, who one day, during a performance of "Electra", stops speaking. At the request of her psychiatrist, Elizabeth is sent away with a nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), to spend the summer months in a vacation home. An uneasy friendship begins to simmer as Alma enjoys Elizabeth's silent company. However, when Alma finds a letter that Elizabeth had been writing which shares a very personal anecdote that Alma had revealed, the nurse is infuriated and in a fit of frustration hurls a pot of boiling water at Elizabeth in a last effort to get her to finally speak.
  
  The anecdote I just mentioned is perhaps one of the most erotic visions in cinema history. Although there is no visual reenactment of Alma's personal reflection, it creates an extremely rich scene that is absolutely unforgettable. The scene involves Alma and her friend sunbathing nude on a beach. Two men, who had been spying, eventually get closer. Alma's friend spots them, and tells them to come over. The four have an orgy, and Alma had never felt so alive.
  
  The title, "Persona", a singular world, solidifies the viewpoint that Elizabeth and Alma are one in the same. However, one of the great paradoxes is that we don't know in exactly what way. Are they simply being compared in an argument that all mankind is one in the same, or is this truly one woman with a divided personality? I've seen it interpreted both ways, and the ambiguity is perhaps what gives it it's lasting power.
  
  The great thing about the film, however, is that although it's often challenging, it's never incomprehensible. We never get the sense of a masturbatory pretentiousness, nor does the film ever truly lose it's footing. In that way, i'm not sure that "Persona" can be considered a "confusing" film - it's perhaps only a film that should be described as open to interpretation and thought. Nobody should have any troubles understanding the narrative even if they aren't sure what to make of all the symbolism.
  
  I don't think "Persona" is a masterpiece on the level of "Cries and Whispers", but it's certainly more than worth your time.

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• 
  
  October 24, 2008

  Saxia

  My first Bergman film! I was impressed! It's sooo... fresh? I really don't know another way to describe it... it doesn't seem to have any restrictions.
  Very intimate because of the close-ups, but the characters are inaccessible as well.
  Vague, I know, but I'm still processing it...( read more), so maybe I'll say something useful and intelligible about it later.
  
  

  

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• 
  
  September 25, 2008

  MidnightMadwoman

  The thing about Ingmar Bergman is that I really don't think he cares whether or not you understand his movies. But sometimes he should. I really like this movie, but for the life of me I couldn't explain what Bergman was trying to get at. The thing about Persona that kept my atte...( read more)ntion was Bibi Andersson, a beautiful and talented actress delivering interesting dialogue. Not much story to speak of, but Andersson crafts a very engaging and complex character, and that is essentially the force that drives the film. There are times when it would seem that the film is trying to do something more complex with its characters then it had the will to do - that half-asses identity switching twist - but the film did not suffer too greatly for it.

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• 
  
  August 8, 2008

  kiriyamakazou

  Bergman has many wonderful musings to explore here but fails to develop a character or story interesting enough to present them. I find that presentation is the key and is something David Lynch pulls off brilliantly even in times of confusion. Film can be an artistic expression b...( read more)ut it should also be interesting. Bergman's other films are beautifully constructed, but Persona is such a grim and emotionless tale it's hard to really analyse what Bergman was trying to do or say. For myself this was a rare misstep from a brilliant film maker. Though the performances were wonderfully handled and the photography was stunning.

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• 
  
  October 17, 2009

  ElCochran90

  "I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every...( read more) inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you've left your other parts one by one."
  
  PERSONA (1966)
  
  Director: Ingmar Bergman
  Country: Sweden
  Genre: Drama / Mystery
  Length: 85 minutes
  
  
  
  Being one of my "giants of cinema" and officially one of the best directors in movie history, Ingmar Bergman created in 1966 what ended up being his most deep and complex movie he would ever dare to create. It is not only his most controversial masterpiece, but it is also the most notorious influence within the genre of psychological thrillers (and probably horror as well) for directors such as Takashi Miike, David Cronenberg and David Lynch. Persona is more than just a simple drama; it is one of the most fascinating psychological studies that worldwide classic cinema could ever offer to mankind.
  
  The plot is "simple", or that's what it seems to be when we are given a brief summary of the film at least. A nurse called Alma is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler, an actress that doesn't physically or mentally seem to be sick or have an illness, but completely refuses to speak a single word. Once that Alma begins to talk about herself alongside with some pretty strong confessions to Elisabeth, she begins to find out that her own personality slowly starts to merge itself and combine with the personality of Elisabeth in a gradual sort of way.
  
  From the first moments since the screen brings us its incredible cinematography, variety of images and its unparalleled edition, we enter into a dream; we find ourselves bound to a symbolic and probably incomprehensible nightmare of which we hardly want to wake up in order to find answers as soon as possible. It merely consists in real animal executions, the process of moviemaking seen from the side we usually tend to ignore once we see a movie as a final result brought to the screen, a crucifixion, a tarantula, a forest, silent cartoons and movies, among other stuff. Despite the particular meaning this sequence has or whichever the meaning we want to attribute to it, what really matters is that it prepares us for one of the most intense and brilliant psychological voyages that we could ever travel through while discovering the wonderful and vast world of movies.
  
  This is probably the movie that possesses the most prolonged, mysterious and exasperating silences in comparison to any film that Bergman had ever directed throughout his whole filmic career. The magic of this film emanates from the fact that it can be seen from several points of view, and no matter which is the one we choose to considerate in the end, the movie ends up being utterly spectacular. On one hand we have the dramatic point of view, in which we are witnesses of the merging process through which the leading protagonists slowly go through in an inevitable and supernatural way. The performances from Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullman are unforgettable and I dare to say those are two of the beat female leading performances I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. Whether it was because of their beauty or their acting talent, it is not so surprising that the director Ingmar Bergman had fallen in love with Liv Ullman when he made Persona.
  
  On the other hand we have the surrealist point of view, like if it had been directly born from the work of Buñuel. You could just turn off the volume of the film and let the imagery and unforgettable sequences talk by themselves. Probably no other director from those times could have created such a beautiful and unique story in the chilling, surrealist and horrifying way it was treated. The cinematography is extraordinary and Persona has the best taken-care-of shots of his whole filmography, capturing the atmosphere and the physical world found in the surrounding of the characters just as well as the one found inside the head(s) of the protagonist(s). The editing is outstanding and transports us to both worlds in an attractive and hypnotizing way, again and again.
  
  Specifically talking about Persona, it gives a particularly existentialist approach. The name of Alma, from my own point of view, is not there by chance. In fact, the name "Alma" is the Spanish word for "soul". It can be a symbolism representing the fact that several times throughout our lives we are so focused in the simple act of living without any responsibility established as a priority that evil, whether it is a harmful vice, violence or the lack of love or respect towards society, takes control of our lives and we can't tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. No matter how many times our conscience tries to warn us about our actions, we keep corrupting our soul and continue ignoring the damage we cause to it, when it actually forms part of our own existence.
  
  However, it is our own conscience, faithfully represented by Alma, the one that is constantly seeking answers to its being for our own sake. It is a part of ourselves that we will never be able to reject, and neither the eternal search for answers about everything that is around us. The more evident scenes depicting the ideas that Bergman wanted to transmit through the performances of Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullman are magisterially shown when Elisabeth's husband appears for the first time, and while he is speaking, the situation makes you wonder whom he is really talking to. The shots were so impressively achieved that, thanks to them, a new question is arisen, which is referent to who really are the protagonists and what is it that they really represent.
  
  Persona has also a highly sexual connotation, noticeable from the first 15 minutes of the film. Sexuality isn't portrayed from a perverted perspective, but from a dramatic and symbolic one. From the infamous superimposed penis during the first scene of the film being shown in an almost subliminal way for the viewer to the locked up girl trying to reach the face of a woman which eventually disappears, all of the content put in the film represents, somehow, the controversy and the beauty that maternity can have for a woman. The desire of having a baby which was later rejected could have been represented by the girl locked up in the mind, since the only thing that she wanted was to meet her possible future mother. However, since her existence didn't mean more than just a plain idea, the image of her mother disappears, and the protagonist's problem is finally concreted.
  
  Although the film received constant comparisons with modern directors such as David Lynch and his masterpiece Mulholland Dr. (2001), Persona is a work of art, analyzable from both the cinematographic and artistic points of view, and it is obviously superior to any other possible comparison. I have never seen a film that could be such a personal experience for any individual like Persona was; neither have I seen a more revealing film for an audience. Persona is officially considered as one of the best movies ever made, and although it is not the most appropriate and adequate film to start with Ingmar Bergman's filmography and certainly is the most complex film by his, it is an obvious successful achievement in cinema history that will never be forgotten, no matter the numerous different interpretations it receives when a person finishes watching it.
  
  100/100

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• 
  
  September 14, 2009

  MajorWhitlock

  Weird. Good, but weird. :)

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• 
  
  September 10, 2009

  kanokaan

  "Seventh Seal" wasnt as i waited but very good.But this was i expected from Ingmar Bergman but i couldnt like it.I mean of course you cant like this kind of movie.You can worship it but cant like.Because it is depressive but its cinema is worshipable.Thanks to Ingmar Bergman.But ...( read more)I'm what i'm...you know...I like cinema,real cinema.But i just cant worship it.The same feeling got me at "Apocalypso Now" too.But after a while i realized that it was a masterpiece of Francis Ford Coppola.I must watch it again i think.

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• 
  
  August 24, 2009

  Abzurdoh

  Quien quieres ser? Quien eres? Satisfecho? Persona, intensa por si misma habla de las personas que no estan contentas con lo que son. De la gente que quiere tener la vida de alguien mas debido al vacio que le va dejando su camino. De que manera quieres vivir? Me recuerda un poco ...( read more)al fondo de Mulholland Dr., aunque aqui con la mano dura y seca pero precisa y eficaz de Bergman.

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• 
  
  August 18, 2009

  339z

  well umn just seen this movie 4 the 1st time n think that this is a good movie 2 watch....i think that bibi anderson, liv ullmann, margaretha krock, gunnar bjornstrand, jorgen lindstrom play good roles/parts throughout this movie....i think that the director of this art - house/i...( read more)nternational/classics/black & white movie had done a great job of directing this movie because you never know what 2 expect throughout this movie.....i think that this is a great movie as its a really weird movie but its so good 2 watch n its enjoyable 2 watch

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View more Persona reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

• 
  December 1, 2006

  rayman0071

  A lot of brave subject material that was a first in Swedish cimema when it came out in 1966. Even dealing with the subjects presented the hind of lesbianism was included and it was a shock that when it came out was the first ever Ingmar Bergman film to do so. I saw it in college when it was shown to adult audiences at a midnight screening of the film,in the "X" rated version.
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  November 8, 2006

  vctrlz

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  September 24, 2006

  panchof28

  a film that touches you.. after Persona nothing is the same... and any movie looks like it did before..
• 
  September 5, 2006

  intikory

  Great

• Bibi Andersson
• Liv Ullmann
• Margaretha Krook
• Gunnar Bjornstrand
• Jorgen Lindstrom

Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

• 
  Another Woman (50%)
• 
  Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) (100%)
• 
  The Silence (100%)
• 
  Girl, Interrupted (50%)

• 1960s film about an actress who looses her voice and is taken care of by a nurse. They later switch identitys. Or do they?  Answer »
• Which infamous real-life persona of terror influenced some of the themes in 'Pyscho'?  Answer »
• Name the Swedish director of The Seventh Seal. He also did Wild Strawberries, Virgin Spring, and Persona.  Answer »
• Which of these films is not based on a real life persona?  Answer »

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