Persona is the sort of film that I struggle to review. When
thinking about the movie today, all I could really say was that it was a bit
odd but I really liked it. I could probably end my review there. Persona is an example of a film that
tests my limited film knowledge and both my powers to describe, compare and
contrast. I might as well start somewhere. I’ve been reviewing films as an
amateur and very occasionally professional for a little over eighteen months.
I’ve been a real life human person for over twenty-seven years. Despite all
those months and years, Persona is
the first Ingmar Bergman film I’ve seen. There are a couple of his films which
I’ve been waiting for my online DVD subscription service to send me but Persona was lent to me by a friend and
broke by Bergman cherry.
The film begins with a wondrous
and surrealist section of flashing images which are spliced into footage of a
boy, stood alone in a room. The boy eventually turns to a book which is pretty
much the only item in the brightly lit, sparsely decorated room. The boy, the
book as well as the images appear at first to be a random assortment of things
but eventually at least some of the images can be viewed as pointers for the
story that is to follow. Others, like the often cut image of an erect penis are
harder (ahem) to explain.
Only five actors appear in this
minimalist piece and just two of those appear for longer than a minute or so.
The film is a study of two characters; an actress turned mute by an unknowable
ailment and the nurse charged with her care. The film’s settings, both the
hospital and cottage in which the actress is sent to recuperate, are equally as
sparse as the boy’s room from the opening. There are few props and the
interiors are bathed in bright sunlight against white washed walls. These sets
are beautifully contradicted by the two women’s clean, black costumes and this
makes the actresses and characters almost jump out from the screen. The film is
deeply beautiful from start to finish, featuring sublime and often unusual
framing as well as complex but interesting camera angles and trickery. The
colour palate, like the rest of the film is minimal and the lack of props
occasionally gives the movie the look of a play. I personally think that the
film would make for a great stage adaptation.
The two women are at the same
time very different but also incredibly similar. For a start one talks and one
is silent. There are differences in their ability to care for others and their
pasts are diametrically opposed. The most striking similarity they share is in
their looks. This is played to great effect in a couple of pivotal scenes. At
first the resemblance isn’t that obvious but there is a fantastic image of the
two women’s faces spliced together as one which really highlights the
similarity. The similarity of the two women’s looks had my mind racing towards
a conclusion which I can neither confirm nor count out. There are many ideas
for what Persona is actually trying
to say and I could go on for pages about duplicity, entrapment, entanglement,
pain, suffering, release etc but I tried not to over think the plot because in
the end, we’ll never know what was inside Bergman’s head. Instead I chose to
view Persona as the masterpiece it is
and wallow in the many beautiful images it congers.
9/10
Titbits
- Bergman himself admits to falling in love with actress Liv Ullmann during production. The couple stayed together for five years and had a child together.
- Bergman has stated that the film saved his life. He wrote the film while recovering from double pneumonia.
- The movie frequently features on all-time movie lists and has been a regular on the highly respected Sight & Sound poll.
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