Persona 1966
Persona is one of the most surprising and controversial parts of Bergman’s filmography. It is a testament to the director’s skill and how he has influenced and distanced himself from modern cinema in many ways. Beyond the craftsmanship of cinema, the film language here has nothing to do with what we have today. Bergman goes well beyond the cinematography. If you wonder who set the rules, here is the true father of cinema, Bergman. For example, when Lynch wrote Mulholland Drive, he must have watched this film at least ten times. A nurse deals with an actress who refuses to speak, despite not having a mental illness, and has completely cut off her relationship with others. As they spend time together in a cottage, the character of one of them (the nurse) falls into a provocative and eerie personality void opened by the silence of the other, and begins to reveal herself in all her details. And eventually, the nurse’s own character disappears and completely integrates and transforms into the character of the actress. (Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman did an excellent job) The power of silence, the presence of character, play, personality, and female identity (worth remembering John Berger’s thesis in Way of Seeing: especially the differences between the expected identities of women and their real identities) is a masterpiece. Persona has been one of the most influential and even groundbreaking films in cinema since 1966. However, here you cannot see a story that can only be written on ancestral papers, do what it needs to do, and then a long time ago lost its power, like Battleship Potemkin or Metropolis, for example. Bergman’s Persona is a true cinema story that all directors could dream of today and bow before the whole world when made. It was liked by a group of people in the year it was made, but at the same time, it was mercilessly criticized by a large group. However, it later became one of the films that set the rules.
