The opinions on this particular film vary from “I didn’t get this at all” to “Stunning Cinematography” and so, just from those two comments, one can begin to understand that persona is not your average film with your typical plot, if anything it’s Anti plot, a kind of plot that resents structure and form and takes the viewer on a journey to a place where time and space do not rule anymore.
One can describe persona as very experimental, it is indeed one of those films that explore the psyche aka the conscience of a human being rather than focusing on what the eye sees. The story is of two women who end up in a beach house together, one is an actress and the other is a nurse and they both figuratively merge into each other right before your eyes.
Persona has a really intriguing script. On one hand we have a normal (not really) character that talks, on the other hand we have the other one that doesn’t, not because she’s mute but because, she just stopped. Bergman wrote the script while in the hospital where he was being treated. He himself states that his own psychological state was poor at the time. This is when he started questioning the role of art in general and his in particular and hence: persona was born.
Here are the very first notes of Persona that Bergman has written:
Dejection and sorrow and tears which change to powerful outburts of joy. Sensitivity in the hands. The broad forehead, severity, eyes survey the [unreadable] childishness.
What is it that I want from this, yes, to start from the beginning. Not to contrive not to incite not to cause a fuss but to start from the beginning with my new if I have one.
So she has been an actress – is that acceptable, perhaps And then she fell silent. Nothing unusual about that.
These notes generally serve as a broad explanation of the psychedelic film and also serve their purpose, as Persona eventually becomes a new start in Bergman’s own career.
Ingmar Bergman's Persona invites many competing and collaborating interpretations, but given his body of work, what most resonates with me is Elizabet Vogler as God, changing "roles" according to the era, or any given person's faith. In the literal story, she is an actress who one day stops speaking, and absent any real pathology, is sent home with a talkative nurse, Alma. The film is about Alma's personal relationship with God, and because this is Bergman, it's a silent, remote God, one that looks at her creation and finds it shocking and ugly, one that, by her silence, invites confession and introspection. The decoder ring, for me, was the art house intro created with images of the Divine's historical evolution. Even within the film, Elizabet's divinity transforms, especially after Alma comes to think she (and thus her faith) betrayed her. The abstract Christian God of modernity falls to psycho-analysis and the concept of the divine interior (i.e. when you pray, the answers come from some part of you), which in an existential universe, is the source of self-loathing. And so, osmosis between Alma and her God occurs in the third act. It's of course possible to read the film completely from a psychological point of view, or perhaps metatextually (because it sometimes breaks the fourth wall and manifests as film). My single viewing yielded what it did, but the film left a lot of doors open for next time.
This is one of those movies, where I couldn't tell if I liked it or not. I have liked the other films that I have seen from Bergman, but this one left me a bit cold and confused. Maybe that was the actual point I don't know.
I can definitely appreciate it on a technical level due to it's great cinematography and acting, but I didn't really enjoy watching it.
That awful habit of thinking what's gonna happen, or is of this way or that way. Enjot the film.. and at the end make those questions.. In this case if you wanna loose a bit of mind. The film brilliant best I've seen of Bergman
Bergman's best. A fantastic, brutal, chilling, amazing film that must be seen. If you think you know anything about cinema and you haven't seen this film, you are sadly mistaken. 10/10
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Comments 1 - 15 of 33
NourNasreldin
The opinions on this particular film vary from “I didn’t get this at all” to “Stunning Cinematography” and so, just from those two comments, one can begin to understand that persona is not your average film with your typical plot, if anything it’s Anti plot, a kind of plot that resents structure and form and takes the viewer on a journey to a place where time and space do not rule anymore.One can describe persona as very experimental, it is indeed one of those films that explore the psyche aka the conscience of a human being rather than focusing on what the eye sees. The story is of two women who end up in a beach house together, one is an actress and the other is a nurse and they both figuratively merge into each other right before your eyes.
Persona has a really intriguing script. On one hand we have a normal (not really) character that talks, on the other hand we have the other one that doesn’t, not because she’s mute but because, she just stopped. Bergman wrote the script while in the hospital where he was being treated. He himself states that his own psychological state was poor at the time. This is when he started questioning the role of art in general and his in particular and hence: persona was born.
Here are the very first notes of Persona that Bergman has written:
Dejection and sorrow and tears which change to powerful outburts of joy. Sensitivity in the hands. The broad forehead, severity, eyes survey the [unreadable] childishness.
What is it that I want from this, yes, to start from the beginning. Not to contrive not to incite not to cause a fuss but to start from the beginning with my new if I have one.
So she has been an actress – is that acceptable, perhaps And then she fell silent. Nothing unusual about that.
These notes generally serve as a broad explanation of the psychedelic film and also serve their purpose, as Persona eventually becomes a new start in Bergman’s own career.
lachyas
Weirdest vampire movie ever.Siskoid
Ingmar Bergman's Persona invites many competing and collaborating interpretations, but given his body of work, what most resonates with me is Elizabet Vogler as God, changing "roles" according to the era, or any given person's faith. In the literal story, she is an actress who one day stops speaking, and absent any real pathology, is sent home with a talkative nurse, Alma. The film is about Alma's personal relationship with God, and because this is Bergman, it's a silent, remote God, one that looks at her creation and finds it shocking and ugly, one that, by her silence, invites confession and introspection. The decoder ring, for me, was the art house intro created with images of the Divine's historical evolution. Even within the film, Elizabet's divinity transforms, especially after Alma comes to think she (and thus her faith) betrayed her. The abstract Christian God of modernity falls to psycho-analysis and the concept of the divine interior (i.e. when you pray, the answers come from some part of you), which in an existential universe, is the source of self-loathing. And so, osmosis between Alma and her God occurs in the third act. It's of course possible to read the film completely from a psychological point of view, or perhaps metatextually (because it sometimes breaks the fourth wall and manifests as film). My single viewing yielded what it did, but the film left a lot of doors open for next time.Camille Deadpan
Stunning cinematography.Groovy09
This is one of those movies, where I couldn't tell if I liked it or not. I have liked the other films that I have seen from Bergman, but this one left me a bit cold and confused. Maybe that was the actual point I don't know.I can definitely appreciate it on a technical level due to it's great cinematography and acting, but I didn't really enjoy watching it.
juanittomx
That awful habit of thinking what's gonna happen, or is of this way or that way. Enjot the film.. and at the end make those questions.. In this case if you wanna loose a bit of mind. The film brilliant best I've seen of Bergmanvmunda
Quite unusual.jamesmcavoy
What. I didn't get this at all.maxi
Just amazing...it really needs to be rewatch maaany times!!Pad
This movie... this movie takes the meta elements to a whole new level.Gotta rewatch this.
Sblenter
Yea I think this movie expresses the WTF that exists in on all of usBarbieLover
A cock in the start of the movie... And this already make the movie a LGBT icon.deadendjob
Bergman's best. A fantastic, brutal, chilling, amazing film that must be seen. If you think you know anything about cinema and you haven't seen this film, you are sadly mistaken. 10/10baraka92
So simple and yet so complex.Extraordinary cinematography.
Typically Thomas
I was having my lunch when I watched this movie. Not a great call.Showing items 1 – 15 of 33