Persona (1966)

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Starring: Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook

A nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personae are melding together.

‘Persona’ is yet another Ingmar Bergman film hailed by many critics as a masterpiece. (Off course they would; it’s slow, boring and pointless…)

Just like Ingmar Bergman’s highly acclaimed ‘The Seventh Seal’, I found ‘Persona’ boring and incredibly slow paced. In short; I hated it. I yawned several times, and kept watching the clock hoping it would come to an end. And why is this film also in black and white?

‘Persona’ has a very weird start with extreme close-up photography at times. Some of these scenes seemed to serve no purpose and came across as experimental. When an actress, Elisabet (Liv Ullmann), suddenly had the urge to laugh on stage, she paused for a moment, and hasn’t spoken a word since. It is never mentioned what caused this reaction.

Having been admitted to special care, a 25-year old nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson) is assigned to take care of her. The Doctor believes Elisabet will recover better at her cottage by the sea, and sends Elisabet and Alma to live there for a while.

At the cottage, the two women start bonding, but Elisabet never speaks a word, so for the entire movie we listen to nothing but talk, talk, talk, talk, and more talk from ONE character. Even for such a short movie, this felt way too long. I mean, could this movie have been any slower? I also found it to be a tedious watch. There was nothing interesting here. The synopsis mentions the personae of the two women melding together, but to me it looked more like they became a lesbian couple.

The performances are very good, especially Bibi Andersson. ‘Persona’ is definitely a character study, but the story didn’t interest me in the least. Maybe I’m not artistic enough to understand Ingmar Bergman’s vision, but to me this was boring as hell and I was not entertained.

‘Persona’ won several awards including Best Film, Best Actress, and Best Director.

In Swedish.

Would I watch it again? Yawn, what?