nathanielqwilson It is almost impossible to praise this movie without sounding smart and cultured and it's almost impossible to criticize this movie without sounding like a bit of a philistine but...yeah, I don't like it.Now, I'm all for stylized cinematography, when "If" switched from color to black and white for no obvious reason I was so impressed because it's the kind of movie that can do that.But here I don't feel it works because, firstly, it makes the whole thing kind of risible, especially given how stone faced the tone is and secondly, the essence of the thing kind of gets drowned in bizarre angles and sudden blurriness.It could have been a fairly effecting exploration into the way, despite superficial differences we are all alike, and part of the same universal journey yet still determined to analyse others. It's ambitious in being mostly just 2 characters (one of whom is almost mute by choice) but ambition doesn't equal skill.I don't think I totally missed everything the movie was trying to say: we see the nurse as the one who has it together and is so different from her but then we see that she is more like simply being at a later stage in her life with elements of her being already visible in the Nurse with her problematic relationship with her fiancé. Or maybe that's tripe but it's the impression I got.And the motif of film: the literal film reel and that she's an actress...the artificiality of the persona...we get it. Oh, and one of them is called "Alma". Seriously.But ultimately I'm a bit "so what?" about it all. There's a tendency for the characters in Bergman's movies to be complex but in the way a psychiatric case study is complex without any relatable human qualities or individuality within except for what is strictly and obviously relevant to the plot or central themes; a tool for movie rather than someone I could meet. So the incites the movie has may be intelligent but also a bit pointless and irrelevant.And while I won't reveal the ending, I didn't even realise it had finished when it did because I saw it with ads on Film4 and there are no credits. So when I found it had finished I was like "wait, is that it?"It's a dense, not very accessible piece of "arthouse" cinema that really exemplifies what people imply by "arthouse" though of course all films are art. It may have been good if it had been half the length and one third the stylization. It has some great atmosphere, the sense of the cold desolate Nordic beach is intensified by its creepy arrhythmic score. The acting is quite stilted, it is first year performing arts academy stuff. Kind of interesting but that doesn't stop it being dull and giving every impression it's convinced of it's own genius. Really just for cinematic curiosity.

TheNabOwnzz For some reason Bergman is considered by many great directors & critics as one of the greatest directors of all time. After having seen The Seventh Seal (1957) and this one i can definitely declare that statement null and void.There's no doubt the black and white photography and the visual imagery are beautiful, and there is really nothing wrong with Bergman's skills with the camera itself, as he uses brilliant closeups and wideshots combined with great cinematography to create a visually impressive film. But these kind of factors need to be combined with the context of an actual story to truly make an impression on its audience, since simply showing pretty images all the time isn't what cinema is about. It's about a combination of technical expertise and relatable human emotion to create a great immersive experience, but this film only has one of these traits.I suppose this movie is generally well liked mostly by pseudo intellectuals who think themselves very smart for liking such an incomprehensible film. The first forty five minutes of the film are pretty linear and straight forward, and do not seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Now these first 45 minutes weren't very good either, but atleast it was coherent and it seemed to have an actual plot. It still never made any sense that the connection between the nurse and a mute actress became so strong so quickly and that she would tell her about something so sensitive that she never told anybody before, but atleast Bergman seems capable of telling a story for some part in a film. However, after the 45 minute mark is where it gets considerably worse and its final 30 minutes focus solely on muddled and repetitive dialogue, weird editing & just a complete mess of a conventional narrative structure to make sure you will have no idea what's going on. Totally seemingly irrelevant images of a spider, a nail being driven through a hand, a boy reading some book are seen throughout the film and all of them are designed so the film can appear to be intellectual, while in reality it isn't. It's easy to say that the film isn't meant to have a conventional narrative structure or an actual cohesive plot because of its ability for pseudo intellectuals to 'Open your mind', because that would make it a whole lot easier to create an actual good film since there is no need for a story, characters, character development or creating a coherent experience in films like this. These kind of experiences are never immersive, because we do not feel connected to the main characters in any way because their connection built in the first 45 minutes feels so wobbly and fake.So, in terms of visuals and camera work there really is nothing wrong with Bergman's way of directing, but it's the messy plot structure and the disconnected editing and sometimes addition of irrelevant images is what turns this film into a pretentious jumble.

elvircorhodzic PERSONA is a psychological drama that, with a strong emotion examines the relationship between an older mental patient and her pretty but lonely nurse. This is a film about the identity, self-centeredness, sex, lesbianism, motherhood and madness. The characters are very intimate, so that, a boundary of reality, in longing and despair, becomes a nightmare and a distorted picture in the mirror.The story revolves around a young nurse named Alma and her patient, a well-known actress named Elisabet Vogler. Elisabet is a stage actress who has suddenly fallen silent and still, although the doctors have determined it is not a result of physical illness or hysteria, but willpower. Alma is somehow fascinated with her patient. The doctor decides Elisabet will recover better in a cottage by the sea, and sends Alma and Elisabet there. A very strange relationship develops between the two women in this isolated environment...Mr. Bergman has put a very complex problems in a relatively simple framework. The research of an identity starts from the elemental drama, through visual poetry and dark fiction, to modern psychological analysis.The beginning of the film is outstanding, Mr. Bergman has managed to disrupt an illusion of reality with some dark symbols including a crucifixion. It is important that impressions are different. That is the point of this melodic game between the desire, repression and insanity. The atmosphere is in an opposite contrast with the environment.Liv Ullmann as Elisabet is the silent patient. Her reactions are a distorted reflection on her beautiful face. Her lips analyze and test. Bibi Andersson as Alma is a nurse who often leads monologues in which she lacks at a word on the other side. Just one word uttered by her patient will scare away the fog that slowly descends between them. However, words slowly dying, while her lips move in fear of a truth.

quinimdb During the opening to this film, I had no idea what kind of movie I was watching. It shows film unrolling in a projector, gore, a strange silent film for a few seconds, and finally an old woman, cut in with pictures of a young boy, laying down in seemingly the same room. We see him wave his hand in front of what seems to be a large screen. We see our main characters appear. The credits start. I think this montage is to show us that we are watching a film, and the potential for what it can be at that moment is endless, considering its up to the creator to decide. This fits in with what we learn about Elisabet Vogler, an actress who suddenly, during an audition, got silent, and had a "sudden urge to laugh", and she has not said a word since. We learn she does have a husband and a life, and she even clearly cares for him, so this sudden change is perplexing to many. But it is this sudden change that shows that the individual is completely in control of their persona, and can change it at any minute. In fact, we all do it, as demonstrated by the nurse of Elisabet, Alma. Almost daily we change our outward personality depending on who we are with and when and where. The film suggests we are almost never exactly who we are on the inside. But the most thought provoking question the film presents is this: can we change who we are on the inside?The answer is yes throughout the film. Alma, at one point in the film, has a long monologue about a boy she slept with on a beach, how it was the best sex ever (yet she still feels guilty), how she got pregnant from the kid (but had sex with her husband the same night), and how her husband and her both got an abortion, but were happy they did. She mentions that she felt like a different person when it was happening. Throughout the film it seems that the two characters are merging into one, and my theory is that they are both the same person. When Alma is delivering the mail for Elisabet, she realizes her mail isn't sealed, and checks it. It involves Almas personal story, and it says that Elisabet is studying Alma. Alma feels offended and wants to get her to finally stop and talk. There is a long scene involving Elisabet walking around and finally stepping on a shard of glass Alma accidentally shattered, this seems to be Alma attempting to get Elisabet to talk, or react in any way, but all she hears is "ow!". Suddenly, Elisabet's husband finds her and Alma, but Alma is talking to him. At first she says, "I am not your wife". But he goes on about how "you love somebody, or say you do... it gives you security, a chance to endure, doesn't it?" which calls back to Alma earlier in the film when she reads her letter to Elisabet that was from Mr. Vogler, and both times he mentions that they both treat each other as "anxious children", and what matters is their intentions. This also calls back to when Alma reads "all our faith and doubt is evidence of our loneliness". Elisabet stands in the room as they have sex, but I believe she is only metaphorically there, in that she is a part of Alma and vice versa. The next scene involves Alma talking to Elisabet about her being told she cannot be a mother, then feeling that she needs to prove to herself and others that she can be a good mother then becoming terrified when she gets pregnant then wanting an abortion but having it fail multiple times then hating the child, but the child loved her unconditionally so it was hard. Then, this same scene plays again, only this time we are watching Alma and not Elisabet. This is another nod to the director being able to control the film entirely, but also, at the end of this one, Elisabets face is superimposed over half of Almas. So, if Alma and Elisabet were the same person, why would they have two different stories of getting pregnant and having a successful abortion and one failed abortion? I believe the failed abortion is true, but Elisabet is Almas suppressed true inner feeling of being an "actor" in everyday life. She sometimes plays different roles, during the pregnancy, the role of the happy expectant mother. Of course these almost never align with her inner self, as stated before. But ultimately it shows that we all have multiple "people" to us, even on the inside. And sometimes we can even convince ourselves that we are a different type of person for our own sake. I think Elisabet does this when she invents Alma, who had a successful abortion. Of course we never go as far as literally convincing ourselves that something different happened to us in the past, but it's a metaphor for how we choose different personalities even internally. Life may seep back through and prevent us from doing so, but we go back to hide ourselves from the horrors of the world.This is a very complex movie, especially for taking up only a short 85 minutes of my day, but I can promise it will inhabit your mind for much longer than that. It cuts from past to present at random, blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, and sometimes deviates completely from the main story to show us that we're watching a film with strange montages. It's about life, the human race, our psychology, film itself, and sometimes nothing at all. It's the most perplexing film I've seen since "Last Year At Marienbad" and thats intentionally perplexing. I mean all of this in the best way. It is one of a kind.