Persona (1966) by Ingmar Bergman

Persona seems to be mainly occupied with modernist and existentialist concerns, which clearly surface from the very beginning of the movie through the psychiatrist’s monologue, addressing Elisabet. It is one of the most powerful moments of the film which seems to truly dip into the human psyche and evocatively define existence as “the hopeless dream to be”, a space where “every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace”.

As the camera suggests, by focusing on the psychiatrist’s face as she advices Elisabet, her speech does not only concern her, but the audiences as well, whom as Elisabet, fell momentarily silent to watch the film. Within it, the audiences traditionally strive to find a persona with which they can possibly identify and thus be distracted from their own experience and struggles of the human condition, their own “hopeless dream of being”. There lie, however, certain peculiarities in the persona the audiences are called to assume in this particular film, as they are invited into a role of playing no role, which Elisabet, being an actress who refuses to act any longer, represents. Elisabet rejects and assumes a persona defined by the absence of one, a state of nothingness that pushes the audience to draw once again to themselves and their own persona, acknowledging its artifice and limitations and thus acknowledging that all that remains there is nothing. It is the essential nothing that allows the possibility for humanity to be anything, the possibility to assume any role.

Furthermore, the existential concerns expressed in the aforementioned psychiatrist’s speech, are fused with those concerning the medium of film, asserting that it is “the shared condition of both life and film art”. Thus it is essential to consider the self-referential nature of the film, which is clearly illustrated by the stunning cinema-themed opening sequence and the frequent appearance of screens and cameras throughout. Representing a persona of no persona deems it a film that cancels itself out. Through its self-referential quality, it disrupts the spellbinding effect of cinema and defamiliarizes the audience with the narrative and characters, becoming, in a manner, a film of no film, an attempt to depict a negation. This is perhaps implied in the instance where the film burns and dissolves, right after we witness the first change in Alma’s persona, who deliberately leaves the glass shard for Elizabeth to step on.

Persona, also centres around the relationship of Alma and Elisabet, which is presented as an encounter with the other, which inevitably transforms the self. It examines what the psychiatrist earlier addressed as: “The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone.” Alma, during their stay to the summer house, tries to fill the void of silence with words, building an eerie intimacy between them that causes the boundaries of identities to gradually dissolve. Frustrated with Elisabet’s absent persona she ends up evoking the actress’ persona within herself to compensate for its lack. By the end of their stay, the movie hints in various ways that she has indeed become her. She seems to possess insight, she could not otherwise have had, into Elisabet’s internal world and even shares intimacy with her husband as if she were her. Alma’s utterance “No! I’m not like you…I’m not Elisabet Vogler.” suggests her awareness in regards to the transformation taking place and its denial, as we witness her increasing loss of her former persona and her descent further into the other.

The transformative change however, is at its most evident in the instance where Alma throws poignant accusations at Elisabet, in regards to her son, toward whom she is utterly cold and indifferent, having therefore failed at the conventional role of motherhood. At that moment we witness the merging of their faces onto one, showing how the perceivably more dominant and attractive identity has subsumed the less confident one. It is a scene that perhaps aims to shed light on the nature of identities, as containing no essence and being mere roles one easily assumes and can put on and off. Perhaps this understanding is the very source of Elisabet’s silence and her refusal to wear one. By transferring herself onto Alma, Elisabet is further liberated from the role she seeks to escape and she sinks further into nothingness. Alma even makes her say “nothing”, towards the end of their stay, in order to convey her state of being, as a non-being. This idea is further suggested by her sudden disappearance towards the end of the movie.

Ironically, it is a film that attempts to express negation and nothingness by presenting us with something. Within the limits of our perception, language and culture, we cannot escape representation, as it is the prerequisite of all communication and at the same time the root of our confinement into roles and personas. Even negations need to be expressed, in order to be understood as such. “Life trickles in from the outside, and you’re forced to react”, as the psychiatrist informs us. Elisabet even in attempting to become nothing is still something, as she is still enacting a role, “a part…out of apathy”. She is advised to “go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest…then [she] can leave it, just as [she has] left [her] other parts one by one.” Thus, as spectators we witness a film and a persona within it that are self-aware and attempt to cancel themselves out, to reach the unreachable nothingness and in this manner liberate themselves from the inauthenticity of lies. We in turn, through the aid of this peculiar medium, are simply invited to dismantle what we perceive as ourselves and join their futile attempt within the “hopeless dream of being”.