Persona

Persona (1966) - 10/10

First Viewed: 3/17/08
Ingmar Bergman (Dir.)
Sven Nykvist (DP)
Starring Bibi Andersson as Alma and Liv Ullmann as Elisabeth Vogler

Bergman's film begins with a montage of abstract images. A film projector thunders to life, a roll of film advances, and a harmless cartoon plays. Then a tarantula crawls up the screen and the film cuts to disturbing images of a sheep slowly being killed and gutted, its life visibly draining out of its eye. Suddenly, we see a close-up of a hand, possibly belonging to Jesus, being nailed into a wooden post.

Bergman cuts to a dirty pile of snow and then to closeups of people laying motionless on beds in what appears to be a brightly lit morgue. A non-diegetic telephone rings and, as if on cue, their eyes fly open, revived by the noise. One of these people is a naked boy, who reaches out towards a huge projection of a blurred woman's face, as if he is trying to reach into another dimension. And then the narrative begins.

These are the first five minutes of Persona, and they comprise what is certainly one of the most fascinating openings to a film I have ever seen. I'm not even sure what it really means at this point, though I do have a theory that I'll explore later on. The film's narrative centers around a beautiful nurse, Alma, who is hired to take care of Elisabeth, an actress who has chosen to live as a recluse and a mute. What follows is a bewildering exploration of what defines identity. While the actresses themselves are stellar in their roles, it is the beautiful cinematography by Nykvist - the DP who would later do brilliant work in Fanny and Alexander and The Unbearable Lightness of Being - and Bergman's meticulous control of the mis-en-scene that give us an innate, visual understanding of the characters. Elisabeth has a shadowy, ghost-like presence while Alma, who is well-lit, seems to retain a bright demeanor.

Alma discovers that Elisabeth is a wonderful listener - she doesn't say anything, after all - and begins to recount events, both good and bad, in her life. Elisabeth, in the meantime, becomes less ghost-like and better lit while Alma seems to be consumed in shadows; their roles begin to switch. Elisabeth, who has chosen to withdraw from society because of past disappointments and disgust with the world in general, essentially becomes a parasite, sapping the humanity and life-loving nature from Alma, who begins to wallow in her own disappointments. The film, through the use of sound and imagery, evokes a feeling of imminent decay and we follow Alma as she struggles to retain her true identity and even her connection with life.

As for the opening sequence, I believe it represents all of the aspects that make up Elisabeth's life. It does seem that the little snippets from our lives - events both beautiful and disturbing - make the biggest impact on who we are and how we view the world. The boy at the end of that sequence may be Elisabeth's son, who she has chosen to grow apart from out of fear of personal weakness. The projected image that the boy reaches towards could be Elisabeth; it is appropriately hazy considering the emotional wall that she has built between them.

Bergman's film is challenging, purposefully vague and difficult to interpret. Its score ranges from sounding dissonantly brilliant to obnoxiously tacky. Our protagonist is sweet one moment and then incredibly distressed the next. Whatever it is we witness, though, this is undeniably brilliant work.