Persona

Title: Kinematografi: Special Edition

Year: 1966
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Rating: NR
Length: 83 Min.
Video: Full Frame 1.33:1
Audio: Swedish: Dolby Digital: Mono, English: Dolby Digital: Mono, Commentary: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Stars:
Bibi Andersson
Liv Ullmann
Margaretha Krook
Gunnar Björnstrand
Jörgen Lindström

Plot:
With some of the most iconic imagery ever committed to film, this "exceptionally beautiful specimen of movie-making" ('The New Yorker') is recognized as a modern masterpiece and "a landmark in late twentieth-century art" ('Time Out London').

Actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann) has stopped speaking and withdrawn completely. Under doctor's orders, she's taken to a remote seaside cottage by a nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson). Alma chats to fill the silence and gradually begins to lay bare her entire identity... until she discovers it is being coolly sucked away from her. As the women battle for control and sanity, the question becomes not which of them is patient and which is caregiver, but are they two separate women at all?

Extras:
Scene Access
Audio Commentary
Feature Trailers
Featurettes
Gallery
Closed Captioned

My Thoughts:

Let me start off by admitting that this is the first Ingmar Bergman movie I’ve ever seen. I found it to be an interesting psychological study as well as being beautifully photographed. However, I found some of the images, especially at the beginning of the movie a bit troublesome and still do not understand what they had to do with the film. Later, in the middle of the film, the insertion of strange little clips of totally unrelated footage and cartoon-like scenes, were distracting to me.
The movie is essentially a monologue delivered by Bibi Andersson, while Liv Ullmann spoke exactly one word in the entire movie. While this could have proven to be monotonous, Bergman does an incredible job of keeping the audience engaged with the imagery he presents, using close-ups generously throughout and letting the facial expressions of the actresses tell a large part of the story, especially in the case of Ullmann.
Although I cannot honestly say that I really understand the meaning or message of the film fully, it is definitely something that I will watch again (hopefully picking up on things I missed the first time through).

Rating: