Persona

​An absolute masterpiece! Watched it again with DC, and noticed even more details than before. 

At the very beginning of the movie Berg man shows us a variety of clips. First we see a lady in the river washing herself; next, a cartoon sequence where the death pops out of the coffin, and wakes up the sleeping “person” that person walks across the room, and falls asleep inside the crib. 

Next, we see the body of the dead child lying in the morgue. A phone rings. He wakes up, looks around confused, and tries to go back to sleep, but he can’t. He puts on his glasses and tries to read a book, but then an image of his mother, projected onto what looks like a giant TV screen, captures his attention. He begins to call for her.

Bergman later mirrors this exact scene with the nurse. Here is where, in my interpretation, he merges the child’s soul with that of the mother. The “Persona” the actress, the character, turns off to allow for the soul to speak. 

Brilliant, beautiful transition here, in which the camera focuses on the face, goes dark slowly until it disappears completely 

Next scene, Sister Alma, (soul sister) is lying in bed, unable to sleep. She wakes up with the sheet wrapped around her body. Her short blond hair and thin, lean physique mirrors the scene where the little boy wakes up in the morgue. 

Here is where Bergman beautifully merges the soul of the young innocent woman, before she is about to commit the awful sin, of cheating on her fiance in the most vulgar, deprave way. She feels dirty and guilty. 

Alma is not simply the woman who takes care of the actress. She becomes a personification of the actress’s soul—the part of her that has been neglected, rejected, or buried beneath the persona.

Here is where the healing process and forgiveness starts to happen. They are sentó to purgatory by the doctor to healed both the innocent soul and actress.  

The actress refuses to speak, but her silence becomes its own form of speech. Alma talks constantly, but the more she speaks, the more her own identity begins to unravel.  

there are moments in which we see clips of the “outside world”, through a television that keeps showing up from nowhere, turned on the news for a reason. And the news are horrible, scenes of war, scenes of disasters, scenes of a man burning to death. 

In my opinion is a way of Bergman asking for forgiveness. The mother is horrified by the world and doesn’t want to be part of it. Perhaps, killing herself and the child is a way to protect the innocent. I might expand on this later. 

Every scene, Bergman merges the soul and the persona through the most artistically beautiful, surreal black-and-white images—images that have inspired me so much! 

An absolutely brilliant and beautiful masterpiece.