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Elisabet, atriz de teatro e cinema, está internada numa clínica psiquiátrica. Pois após encenar a peça Electra, ela ficou em estado de silêncio profundo, não falando e não se movendo por três meses. A psiquiatra então decide fazer um tipo de hipnose para tentar entrar em contato com Elisabet e descobrir o que a fez ficar nesse estado. De certa forma, a médica consegue falar com ela, porém através da personagem Alma, uma enfermeira simples sem grandes ambições. Possivelmente, o fato de estar em uma clínica, libertou essa personagem com mais facilidade.

A médica vê uma oportunidade de resgatar Elisabet através de sua personagem e a induz a entrar em contato consigo mesma e descobrir a origem do silêncio. Alma se sente incapaz de tal façanha inicialmente, pois como é apenas uma pequena parte de Elisabet, e como é uma personagem com uma personalidade aparentemente frágil e insegura, ela acha que não conseguirá encontrar o âmago da questão.

A médica percebe que a clínica não é um bom ambiente para Elisabet se sentir tão a vontade quanto seu personagem, então através da hipnose a leva a uma casa de verão, pois a mesma se recusa a voltar ‘mentalmente’ a sua casa e começa um tratamento mais intensivo. Para tentar entender Elisabet, ela primeiro tenta extrair toda informação de quem é a enfermeira Alma. Pois essa personagem, apesar de mostrar-se tão frágil deve ter alguma conexão seu estado atual, algo em comum que a fez aparecer nesse momento.

Conquistando a simpatia de Alma, ela revela seu segredo mais íntimo. A doutora sente que finalmente fez algum progresso. Porém, ela não esperava que houvesse uma relação intensa de amor e ódio entre Elisabet e Alma. Com personalidades totalmente contraditórias, Elisabet se sente bem superior a Alma, despreza sua dependência em relação aos homens e sua insegurança. Alma percebe que está sendo usada, mas não entende de que forma está sendo manipulada por Elisabet. Alma desconhece que é apenas um personagem.

É interessante notar como ambas se vestem quase sempre de forma idêntica, porém Elisabet aparece sempre bem mais glamurosa. Alma sente inveja de Elisabet, queria ser tão forte, tão interessante e importante como ela. Quer o reconhecimento, o amor de um homem e um filho. Não entende como Elisabet tendo tudo isso, sinta-se tão oprimida em sua realidade.

No mundo real, Sr. Vogler quer conversar com sua esposa. A médica informa a situação de sua mulher, a conversa se dá somente através da enfermeira em estado hipnótico. Seu marido não importa com isso, pois acredita que Alma é Elisabet de qualquer forma. Quer ouvir a voz da esposa novamente e com muita insistência consegue o contato com Alma. Nesse momento, Alma entende sua situação, entende a manipulação de Elisabet e ao mesmo tempo tem acesso ao seu âmago.

Elisabet não quer conversar com marido, mas também não quer machucá-lo. Ela faz o que sempre fez antes de se silenciar, atua. Usa a fragilidade, simpatia e devoção da personagem para dialogar com seu marido através de Alma fingindo ser Elisabet. Alma não gosta dessa situação, ela quer se livrar de vez da manipulação imposta. E agora que descobre o que faz Elisabet sentir-se tão reprimida e culpada, vê a oportunidade de conseguir o poder total sobre a mente e corpo de Elisabet.

A médica não percebe que é apenas Alma se passando por Elisabet e pensa que está avançando no tratamento e logo terá Elisabet de volta. Alma então revela o segredo íntimo de Elisabet, pois esse é o único meio de conseguir o controle, reprimindo Elisabet. Nesse momento a médica revela o último segredo: quem de fato é Alma. Ocorre o choque entre as personagens, a batalha final entre criador e criatura. A criatura vence, Alma agora controla o corpo e mente de Elisabet, não é mais uma personagem manipulada, mas a real persona de Elisabet e conseguiu tudo o que sempre sonhou: um homem que a ama, um filho e uma carreira de sucesso. Elisabet desperta da hipnose…

Honestly, I don’t find this film difficult to understand. It’s not ambiguous, I think it’s quite clear what Bergman is saying. Of course, I may be wrong,

First, you must understand that Elizabeth is the person and Sister Alma is the persona. There are plenty of indications of this throughout the film, in both content and form.

Elizabeth has an identity, she is an actress with a husband and son. She is quiet and contemplative because she is the external aspect of the person. Alma represents the inner turmoil, the self conflict. Elizabeth is studying her (i.e. the content of the letter), just like anyone experiencing introspection.

Alma screams that she is constantly changing, this is because, while Elizabeth will never change in appearance, her persona is constantly changing. Alma leaving on the bus, right after shots of a film crew, indicate the transitive nature of that persona; Alma leaves, and, like an actress who has finished performing a role, Elizabeth’s persona changes – Alma is no more. Elizabeth is an actress, but it’s indicative of the personality of human beings in general – we are all acting, always fulfilling a role, and, in doing that role, we create a real, definable character of ourselves, through our actions – this is our persona. When our actions are altered our persona is altered; as we change how we act, our persona changes with us.

Sister Alma is called ‘Sister’ Alma because, while the two aspects are actually one, Alma is the subvenient one (Elizabeth, supervenient), a kind of ‘tag a long’, the inner, sister, part of Elizabeth… the ground of Elizabeth’s being. A change in Elizabeth’s character suggests a necessary change in Alma (Elizabeth’s persona), while a change in Alma (Elizabeth’s persona) does not necessitate a phenomenal change in Elizabeth’s character. This is the basis for all of Alma’s conflict, it’s why Elizabeth remains unchanged until the end of the film; we are watching the profound underlying aspect of consciousness, the active inner part that guides and influences our emotions, and that our thoughts are only partially aware of. Elizabeth is only partially aware of what’s going on with Alma – what’s going on within her mind. When Alma gives Elizabeth that speech about truth and being real and honest, it’s because Elizabeth is this facade, this forefront of her identity, the conscious aspect that is only partially aware of the truth of her being. All that is not conscious – her persona – is hidden from her, though it’s trying to make itself known.

In the one scene where Alma is with Elizabeth’s husband, we see Alma, but this is superimposed with foregrounded images of Elizabeth. We’re seeing the persona, but the actual person is Elizabeth. This is why Alma suddenly realizes that it’s her lover, because it really is, and always has been. Since Elizabeth’s husband’s name is left out, it’s likely that the name Alma gives her fiance (can’t remember it at the moment) is actually the name of Elizabeth’s husband. (Seeing as they are two aspects of the same identity). The son that exists, despite the attempts to abort, is Elizabeth’s real son; Alma’s story about having an abortion is Elizabeth’s persona, her conscience, finding a way to hide itself, out of fear, from the truth that she has a son.

Finally, the film speaks in metaphor, this is a function of art. It’s neither necessarily linear, in time, actual, dream, or w/e you want to call it – It’s a film, it should be treated as such. The scenes are there to convey something – an idea, an image, a meaning – and Bergman uses form to do this in the most effective manner. It doesn’t all have to make sense on a literal level, it’s the experience, the stream of consciousness that it imparts, that matters.

OK, bye, hope that helps someone.

5/5

Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film, Persona, is a work of deconstructivism. This was a postmodernist movement of the mid-60’s that strived to produce, essentially, art for art’s own sake. Moreover, postmodernism is a self-reflective art form. It embraces its own artificiality as a medium that has its sole function in representing human impressions and/or emotions. Thus, embracing the postmodernist vein of self-reflexivity, Bergman includes various metacinematic scenes in the film. For example, in one instance, Liv Ullman, points a still-shot camera directly into the frame, breaking the fourth wall. In this moment, we are not only reminded of the camera but we are most aware, as an audience, that we are in a mode of artificiality. This is an art form that is going out there and embracing its identity as a medium that is, inherently, artificial. It is taking cinema and saying “this is art and we are not concerned with trying to deceive you into thinking its reality.” With these themes in mind, one might understand why, while many of us can point out certain qualities of this film that can be associated with other movements of cinematic expression, one cannot help but eventually come to the conclusion that despite its various influences, the mood of this film is strikingly postmodern and deconstructionist.
From a postmodernist perspective, this film asks many questions about existence and communication which can readily be related to Shakespearian existentialist conceptualizations of “nothingness”; furthermore, it continues themes proposed in some of Bergman’s earlier films such as, The Silence, regarding communication, or lack thereof, between individuals. Bergman writes in his autobiography that, having conquered this hindrance in the form of his belief in the existence of god, he was actually able to confront real questions about his identity. Accordingly, in, Through a Glass Darkly, Bergman suggested that the closest thing to god or the divine experience is rooted in human connection and/or social relationships. Like in, The Silence, this film too presents its viewer with individuals who cannot communicate and therefore, in Bergman’s perception of the order of the world, are quite depraved. Yet, while, The Silence, presented two sisters, both of whom have had struggles in communication; Persona, on the other hand, arguably presents one individual broken up into tow sides of consciousness, represented, respectively, through the actresses Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman.
Artistically, the manner Bergman and his cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, took in representing such a a complex, internal psychological struggle is truly profound. Through diverse lighting and blocking techniques, Bergman and Nykvist achieve shots that serve to make this film own up to its reputation as a work of self-reflexive art; or, moreover, art for art’s own sake. The two film geniuses utilize such memorable techniques as lighting half of the face and leaving one side dark, superimposing two faces together and finally, creating impressionistic scenes in which the interaction between the actresses is seen as dream-like, almost as if both of them are ghosts living in an alternate world of dark inner-psychology. Be that as it may, with a modern novel, the narrative here is banal, commonplace, lacking in action even; yet, as we know, that is not the point. The focus of the work is the aesthetic contributions being put forth by Bergman and Nykvist, furthermore, the greater thematic interpretation. The film ends showing us a scene of Elisabet being filmed as she returns back to her profession as an actress, leaving us with our last impression, the most metacinematic moment in the film. The only words which Elisabet speaks through the entire film are “no” and “nothing”. Being that Bergman had his roots in theatre, it is no question that he was familiar with the existentialist questions of Shakespeare presented in such works as King Lear and/or Hamlet. Without the question of god burdening the artist, he was now free to endeavor in facing such deep, profound questions as are usually associated with schools of deconstructivism and/or postmodernism.

This is a highly overrated film. The strange and chilling feeling others seem to find here struck me as contrived and predictable. This is a film that deliberately tries to confuse the audience with it’s style to distract from the lack of substance. The second you begin to ponder deeper about its meaning, the more obvious its two-dimensionality becomes. Cinematically, it is nicely shot and the acting is not bad, but it really is a piece who’s purpose is more to showcase Swedish beauties and nothing more. Dull, pretentious, deliberately confusing, Persona is not for anyone looking for a philosophical film, it is an “art for art’s sake” sort of film. It also presents women as either manipulative and conniving, or weak-willed and easily lead, and of course, both are beautiful, so what more could an unquestioning, predominately male audience want?

Without a doubt, Persona is one of the most impenetrable films ever made, but this seeming barrier only serves to render it open to endless interpretation. After a strange and somewhat disturbing montage opens the film, the narrative begins, focusing on an actress rendered mute after a performance of Elektra, and the nurse who cares for her. Bergman long considered this be his most important film, and many critics refer to it as a unique take on the iconography of the horror film. Whether you subscribe to the interpretation that the nurse and the actress are aspects of the same person, or the interpretation that film is about humanity’s incapability of reacting authentically to great suffering without constructing illusions, there is no doubt that watching it provokes a visceral response. A masterpiece by a true genius of film.

A fascinatingly deep film from Bergman with layers upon layers of mysteries that would require repeated viewings to fully understand its mysteries. This is my second viewing of the film and I still left it slightly confused and a little dazed.

Bergman pushed himself to the limits here, and created this eerie experimental film that messes around with the normal conventions of cinema. The acting is top notch here, and Bibi Andersson delivers one of the most erotic monologues in the history of cinema, which even predates the opening monologue found in Godard’s Week End. Bergman once expressed that Persona is a poem in images, and it truly is. One only has to look at the opening montage to get a sense for this, but it truly unravels as the film progresses, especially once things begin to heat up at the summer home.

Many people seem to compare this movie to David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr, which is a fair comparison. These two movies take a deeper look at the darker side of filmmaking, mainly from the actresses point of view. It’s certainly a dark and scary place, but a place I would like to revisit nevertheless.

Persona means:

in psychology, the personality that an individual projects to others, as differentiated from the authentic self. The term, coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, is derived from the Latin persona, referring to the masks worn by Etruscan mimes. One of the Jungian archetypes, the persona enables an individual to interrelate with the surrounding environment by reflecting the role in life that the individual is playing. In this way one can arrive at a compromise between one’s innate psychological constitution and society. Thus the persona enables the individual to adapt to society’s demands.

-from Encarta

As soon as I finished watching Bergman’s ‘masterpiece’ Persona (1966) last night, I started it over again. But it was already 3 am or so, and couldn’t help flaking out. I had really ‘understood’ the film and was awed, a lot more impressed with its rich cinematography and subject. (This is my first Bergman film.) Bergman seems to lay more emphasis in the medium throughout the film. It remains a ‘film’, all so mysterious, both real and unreal, a film that effectively shows what I’ve always believed in: we are all just the same. Bergman himself wanted to call this work ‘A Bit of Cinematography’ at the beginning (Wiki).

I’ve not been able to fully decipher the montage- the hammering of a nail into a hand, the cruel slaughtering of a sheep. At first screening, I couldn’t even notice the erect penis. Only after a little research today that it occurred to me that I’d missed ‘something’. Sexuality is used as a vehicle to con/fuse the two ‘different’ characters- Elisabet, an actress, and Alma, her nurse. Alma is taking care of Elisabet who has stopped talking despite being both mentally and physically fit. Alma wonders what has happened to her. At the end, I was so ‘confused’ that I could not identify one woman from the other – who took the bus?

The boy, shown in one of the montage films at the beginning, reappears towards the end. As the boy was one of the ‘seemingly’ dead bodies, he could be already dead. It could be one of the reasons of Elisabet’s silence. When Alma tries to play Elisabet’s role with Volger, her ‘blind’ husband, she completely breaks down. Elisabet is watching Alma and Volger- the two lying in bed when she just can’t pretend to love him any more. She can’t act anymore. She can’t run away from her own self- ‘the self, Elisabet, who is watching them’. The inside of Alma wants to be, or already is, Elisabet- who refuses to lie or act anymore and demonstrates a ‘great mental strength’ and determination to be what she actually is.

Alma has never been able to be ‘real’ to anybody, including herself. But she tries to be herself before Elisabet. (Alma ‘trusts’ Elisabet at the beginning, she doesn’t fear because she thinks Elisabet can’t reveal her secrets. She feels secure to be herself because she ‘assumes’ Elisabet won’t, or can’t, disclose them to anybody, since she doesn’t speak. ) She tells her about her intimate secrets. She regrets that she could not be what she really is and she doesn’t believe in what she used to. Isn’t it necessary in life? To believe in something? Her ‘persona’ is not what she really is- and now she can’t limit her grief within. It is so painful. And even if everything in life is just a fake show, everything we do a pretence, a cheating, a lie, however, the pain is always real.

But I think Elisabet can’t feel Alma’s pain. She can only smile and caress her. Most probably, Elisabet has gone through this suffering, this denial of her own self that now she can caress Alma ‘comfortably’. Near the climax, when Alma exposes Elisabet’s inability to return love to her own child because she can’t love him— she has always hated him—she too shows this weakness. She can’t show compassion. (“What do you know about compassion?”) Alma tries to deny this fact, she says they are not alike but she can’t ascertain herself. Because they are just the same. At this point, the two women become one. And, I’d not seen this being shown as effectively as Bergman has- he has really impressed me. He showed me that it could be done so beautifully, so powerfully through the medium (cinema).

Elisabet has tried but she can’t love what she had always hated so much (her baby). If she does, then it’s again pretence- ‘compromise with life’ (and perhaps fate). But she is already tired of playing so many roles, now she wants to be herself. She hates her son. If she wants to be herself, then she must hate him because she can’t love him. But how could she hate/hurt her own child? That is not what society expects us to be.

We live in a family, in a society, and we all have to pay certain price for the ‘security’ that it gives. We must be, even if we don’t want to be, what we are ‘supposed’ to be. Putting a big fake smile on lips most of the times, we greet people, shake hands, hug, and being ‘me’ is not only irrational but impossible at such times because ‘we live in a society, man is a social being’. That’s what we learn in the society, that’s what we are taught from our birth- to compromise, always try to be what you’re not, and eventually the mask we put on during our childhood, youth or maturity, the one mask that we put on for the longest period of time is what we become, is what ‘our identity’ becomes. And, we are forced to accept, believe. If we choose not to, then they punish us, they crucify us. Nobody wants to be an outcast. Most of us choose to silently, and effectively, play roles that our circumstances demand, and we strive, we suffer to fulfill ‘our goals’. Some people who have problems choose art as the medium to express themselves, to be themselves. But then too, the pain is always so real.

1:53 am
January 29, ‘08

Here’s the part of ‘communication’ between Elisabet and her physician:

“Don’t you think I understand? The hopeless dream of being. Not seeming, of being. Conscious at every movement. Vigilant. At the same time the chasm between what you are to others and to yourself? The feeling of vertigo and the constant desire to at last be exposed. To be seen through, cut down, and perhaps even annihilated. Every tone of voice a lie, every gesture a falsehood, every smile a grimace.

Commit suicide? Oh, no. That’s ugly, you don’t do that. But you can be immobile, you can fall silent. Then at least you don’t lie. You can close yourself in, shut yourself off. Then you don’t have to play roles, show any faces or make false gestures.

You think…

But you see, reality is bloody-minded. Your hideout isn’t watertight.

Life seeps in everything.

You’re forced to react. No one asks if it’s real or unreal, if you’re true or false. It’s only in the theatre the question carries weight. Hardly even there.”

When I first saw Persona I had no idea what to expect. I knew only two things: that the title is Persona and that it’s a Bergman film. The second is the reason I watched the film at all. You can never go wrong with a Bergman movie. What I recieved from the film is more than I expected. It’s a really personal, introspective examination of the lives of these two women. It’s not the most entertaining movie, but I do not think entertainment is what you should look on the first place in a Bergman film. Persona is cinematic art on a highest level.

The greatest film ever made. Well, that’s certainly debatable but it is my favorite. It is a mysterious film with many different interpretations that I have never been fully able to grasp. But whenever I am watching it, I feel its mesmerizing power and become engrossed in its world. It is a film that probes the female psyche, exposes the buried truths that each of us hide, and explores what it means to exist in a world that none of us understands. Persona is also Bergman’s attempt to deconstruct cinema itself.

a beautiful and moody film. the intimacy of the relationship (whatever we understand it to be as we are watching) and that of the camera with these two luminous actors is confronting and powerful.

I have found it interesting reading the autobiographies of Liv Ullmann and getting some insight into her personal and professional relationship with Bergman.

she writes well and her books are very open and honest, whereas she has always remained intensely private when it comes to the media.