Persona (February 7/04)
Ingmar Bergman's Persona is, even by his standards, incredibly obtuse and arty. Though the film has a lot of positive things going for it - primarily in the acting and dialogue - Bergman's penchant for strangeness eventually undercuts the effective elements.
The story concerns a nurse named Alma (Bibi Andersson) who's been assigned the task of looking after Elisabet (Liv Ullman), an actress that's inexplicably stopped speaking. The two retreat to a remote seaside cottage, where Elisabet's doctor hopes the tranquil setting will encourage the woman to come out of her shell. While there, Alma talks incessantly about anything and everything - though she mostly chats about her life and the various choices she's made. Elisabet listens patiently, and in a bizarre twist that doesn't really make sense, Alma soon finds her own identity in question; her relentless talking has seemingly caused her to switch personas with Elisabet.
It's undeniably a bizarre premise for a film, but Bergman wisely doesn't let it dominate the story - up to a point. By the time the last 20 minutes rolls around, the movie mutates into something that's just as incoherent as the subject matter might indicate. Which is a shame, really, as Alma and Elisabet eventually become fully fleshed out and intriguing characters. And in the case of Elisabet, that's no small feat considering she barely speaks throughout the film. Ullman does a fantastic job of using only her face to create this character, and proves that it is indeed possible to give a compelling performance without saying a single word. Andersson is equally good as Alma, an outwardly well-adjusted woman who clearly has a lot of skeletons in her closet. Though she spends the majority of the movie complaining about something, Andersson nevertheless manages to turn Alma into more than just a whiner (which is more impressive than it sounds, given that she converses with Elisabet as though she were a shrink).
Persona is also quite stunning on a visceral level, as Bergman (along with cinematographer Sven Nykvist) frames each sequence with just the sort of precision he's famous for. Bergman and Nykvist imbue the movie with a dreamy quality that's certainly assisted by the use of black and white photography. The relative lack of dialogue cements the ethereal nature of the story, though Bergman does eventually go to far in his pursuit of an otherworldly ambiance. As compelling as the characters are and as intriguing as the dialogue is, Bergman's eccentric tendencies wind up sabotaging his efforts to create a searing portrait of two vastly different women. Oddball moments (including the slaughter of an animal and a nail being driven into a hand) presumably represent the respective psyches of these characters, but they're more distracting than anything else.
Persona works best during the more intimate sequences between Alma and Elisabet, and though it's never boring, the movie never quite becomes the powerful examination Bergman clearly wants it to be.
