It’s hard to believe it has already been more than three years since Persona. The first Bergman film I saw was The Seventh Seal back in 2007 and I was immediately hooked. I quickly followed that up with Wild Strawberries and have since come to own many of the iconic Swedish director’s films, and as much as I never believed anything he directed could effect me as much as Seventh Seal, Persona is a whole new level of filmmaking.
I’ve been asked before if a film can still be enjoyable even if you don’t entirely understand it. Persona is evidence that the answer is a resounding yes. The film came about after Bergman fell ill in 1959 as he was planning on beginning work on a film with Liv Ullman and Bibi Andersson titled The Cannibals. That film never came to fruition.
While recovering in the hospital, and after after seeing a photo of Andersson and Ullmann together Persona was born, telling the story of two women who lose themselves in one another… or at least that’s one way of describing it.
Persona doesn’t have a straight-forward narrative, though if you wanted to boil it down to the most simplistic terms it tells the story of Alma (Andersson), a young nurse, and her eventual patient Elisabet (Ullman), a stage actor, that has suddenly gone mute. Elisabet’s treatment soon finds the two women living together on a remote island cottage where the lines between where one of them ends and the other begins becomes blurred.
What exactly happens in the film is left for the viewer to decide. In an interview segment included on a new Criterion Blu-ray edition of the film Ullman says, “Maybe the persona in Persona is Ingmar,” while Andersson says that after seeing the film at the premiere she and Ullman concluded it was the story of two halves of one person. When asked by the interviewer just what exactly is taking place, Bergman responds as he has many times before:
“Look, don’t make me state what my initial thoughts were, because that’s of such little importance. Of course we have a working theory, as you always do when you do something. But it would be utterly stupid to then superimpose that upon other people’s perceptions. Each person should experience it the way they feel.
It isn’t about understanding. It’s always about experiencing it emotionally. It’s like with music. Stravinsky once said — and I think this is wonderful — “I’ve never understood a single piece of music in my life. I’ve only experienced them.”
I love that Stravinsky line as it describes perfectly the way I watch movies. As much as we can be drawn in by the intricacies of filmmaking and the particulars of how a scene was shot, the motivation of the actors, the inspiration for the story, etc., the most important part of a movie, for me, is how it affects me personally. My emotional connection and understanding of a film shouldn’t be dependent on what the director intended, but instead on how I interpret it.
Take for instance the stunning, six-minute opening prologue, offering imagery Bergman wants to make sure sticks with the viewer, even if you aren’t entirely sure of, or understand, what you’ve seen. Some of which foreshadows what’s to come, some just a thematic hint, but it altogether sets the mood and gets you in the right mindset, challenging and inviting you into what’s to come.
On the new Criterion edition, Bergman scholar Peter Cowie dissects the prologue in its entirety and I found it fascinating to hear his interpretation in combination with evidence for his discoveries. Yet, I don’t think it’s something that needs to be defined in explicit terms as much as it’s a visual morsel to enter the film’s world.
If anything, the main theory I come away with is to interpret all that takes place during this opening six minutes is Bergman intending for us to view the film as if we are the little boy (Jorgen Lindstrom). The film, more than once breaks the fourth wall, and to view the feature from his perspective also plays well into the film’s themes revolving around motherhood.
This opening also tells us Persona is about cinema. Of course, the fact the film was originally titled Cinematography adds to that along with other early titles including Sonata for Two Women, A Piece of Cinema and Opus 27, before eventually being titled Persona, a word derived from Latin where it means theatrical mask.
Add to this the music from Lars Johan Werle, which strongly suggests we’re watching a horror of some sort. Horror or psychological drama, this understanding is evident throughout such as a scene later in the feature showing Elisabet moving slowly through what appears to be fog captured thanks to cinematographer Sven Nykvist‘s superior lighting techniques or even the moment Alma scratches her arm and Elisabet laps up the blood.
From here you must decide if what you’re watching is real or imagined. Is the scene you’re watching a dream and if so what does it symbolize? A vampire sucks the life force from its victim and yet Alma offers up her arm willingly. Has she given in to Elisabet?
Beyond all of this, we haven’t even scratched the surface when looking closer at this film. The questions that arise from the inclusion of the picture of the young boy during the Holocaust, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk’s self-immolation on television, the bloody hands of Jesus Christ, the focus on hands in general and so on. This, however, is just an essay on the film, such dissection could fill books and it has.
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Persona is one of only a few films where I can say I truly felt the director’s influence. Bergman seems to understand the power his film will have over an audience and he uses that power to his advantage, fracturing the image, reminding us he’s in control just as we’re getting comfortable.
Two films I’d immediately place alongside Persona would be Federico Fellini‘s 8 1/2 and Alain Resnais‘ Last Year at Marienbad and, even more recently, directors such as Denis Villeneuve (Enemy), Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin) and Charlie Kaufman (Synechdoche, New York) have ventured down such experimental paths, though I can’t think of a modern day comparison nearly as stunning as Persona.
Speaking of comparisons, it’s funny to hear Paul Schrader on this new Criterion edition compare Persona to the work of Jean-Luc Godard and Luis Bunuel. The same comparison is made in one of the archival interview excerpts on the disc in which Bergman admits to admiring Bunuel but despises Godard and refuses to accept the idea Godard could have had any influence on his movie.
The task of making what, on the surface, seems like such a complicated film come across so easy to understand is one of the truly exhilarating aspects of Persona. How can a film that seems to move and confound us at every turn seem so easy to understand? Granted, it’s not a film for everyone and mainstream audiences would likely walk away disinterested, but for those looking to be challenged will likely feel equally provoked as much as they will experience a relative ease in navigating this film’s secrets.
What’s truly amazing about Persona is how visceral it is, even when it isn’t depending on explicit visuals. Alma’s story of sex on a beach between her, a friend and two young boys will be burned in your mind as if you actually saw it. Meanwhile, Elisabet looks on, indifferent, almost as if she’s heard it before.
Elisabet’s reaction, however, to Alma’s second monologue, told with just as much power and emotion by Andersson as the first, seems to break Elisabet, and break the independent reality of the two women, merging them into one in one of the most iconic images from the film and perhaps in cinema altogether.
Several such images populate the film, some seeming to be inspired by the work of Picasso as Alma is caught in profile and Elisabet head on as the two sit at a table smoking. Another finds the two women staring as if into a mirror, captured in one another’s arms. It’s a scene both sensual as well as horrifying with Nykvist’s camerawork, Werle’s score and the two actresses’ performances working against one another to create a beautiful menagerie of emotions.
I don’t think there is any one way to interpret Persona, virtually any interpretation can find enough supporting evidence within the walls of the film’s 88-minute running time. Yet, once you’re done with those 88 minutes you’ll feel as if you’ve been devoured by cinematic genius, and you’ll want to return to it again and again, wondering if there just might be another secret to uncover.
Persona is now available on Criterion DVD and Blu-ray, which you can purchase right here.
My Best Movies feature is a new feature on the site that will continue to highlight my favorite films, and films I consider to be the very “best”. You can explore the new section of the site right here for a look back at my previous top tens and much more.
