Persona - Reviewed by Ian and Ben

Persona directed by: Ingmar Bergman 1966

Reviewed by: Ben Fancher and Ian Stout

“I want audiences to feel, to sense my films. This to me is much more important than their understanding them." – Bergman (playboy magazine article1964)

His film Persona, released in 1966 accomplished just that. Ingmar takes us straight into the minds of what would appear to be two entirely different women who are equally disturbed on different levels.

The provocative opening images of flashing film stock, a penis, an absurd upside down cartoon woman washing herself really set the tone. Using grotesque images of a lamb being slaughtered as well as a nail being pounded through a hand, Bergman has no shame in putting his viewers in the mental state he has decided this story must begin. The question remains. Is this suppose to be the mind state that we find our lead actress in when the story begins or is it a direct message to the audience from the filmmaker himself?

Elisabeth Vogler, an acclaimed actress who has recently retreated into silence is put under the care of Alma, a young female nurse. The two women spend some time together at the doctor’s summer home, as she has prescribed. Elisabeth and Alma fall into a hypnotic dance of the speaker and the listener. Elisabeth seems content to sit in silence as Alma pours her heart out to her non-stop. Roles begin to swap as the nurse shares stories of her past erotic adventures to the ever-silent actress. Before you know it it’s the nurse who appears to be in need of some care and the would be troubled actress comes across calm and content. On top of it all, Alma appears to be falling in love with Elisabeth, after a few glasses of wine really open her up. Alma becomes upset and even violent when she realizes that Elisabeth has been sharing her secrets with others through her letters. And just when you find yourself engrossed in the story, Bergman jerks the viewer out of the trance by flashing earlier images of simple skits and jitters in the image that make the film stock appear to be screwing up in the projector all while the sound and music rise into a deafening cacophony. Finally it's a furious emotional race to the finish when both girls come to one of two possible realizations. The first being they both have the same tendencies and are each just as capable of embodying the others level of insanity. The second possible interpretation would be they are the same person. Two identities trapped in one body. Many clues such as the two faces being overplayed and intercut in the edit as well as the husband showing up and sleeping with Alma instead of Elisabeth, all seem to point to the fact that they are one and the same person. The film ends with just the nurse leaving and a glimpse of the film makers moving a crane shot and the little boy, most likely the actress’ son with his hand up to a blown up defocused image of a woman. Then the film stock runs out and derails from the projector.
Much like the films of Godard, it appears that Bergman wants to remind his audience that they are watching a film. That it is an art form and that he is the artist behind it.
Not being bogged down, as many American filmmakers were in Hollywood, with the pressure to bring in large profits, the Swedish filmmaker, is able to focus fully on his high level of ambition and non traditional storytelling. He holds nothing back in his imagery and theatrical content.
Bergman appears very successful at getting his vision across and engaging his audience through image and performance. His mission wasn’t to make a simple story, cut and dry. Even his beautifully long tracking shots on the beach did not distract from his intentions for the film. He set out to make us “sense and feel the film.” Love it or hate it, there is no way anyone could watch Persona and not have an emotional response. And through it all we may take away the lesson that despite our differences, we all have a dark past and we’re really not that different from one another.