Persona
仮面／ペルソナ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A mute actress and her nurse on an island; the beach-orgy monologue is delivered, not shown.
A projector starts up and throws out a flicker of images, a spider, a crucifixion, a lamb being killed; a boy wakes in a hospital and reaches towards a screen where two women's faces blur into each other. Elisabet Vogler, a stage actress, stopped speaking in the middle of a performance of Electra and has not spoken since; her doctor says it is an act of will, not illness. Alma, a young nurse, is assigned to her. In hospital Elisabet is shaken by news footage from the Vietnam War of a man taking his own life, and when Alma reads her a letter from her husband, she tears up the photograph of their son inside it. The doctor sends the two women to a cottage by the sea.
There Alma talks and Elisabet listens. No one has ever really listened to her before, Alma says. She talks about her fiancé, Karl-Henrik, and tells the story she has told no one: a day on a beach when two young boys came upon her and a woman she had just met, Katarina, and the two women drew the boys into sex. It was abuse of the boys, though Alma remembers it with shame and something like longing. She became pregnant and had an abortion. Posting their letters in town, she reads Elisabet's unsealed one and finds that Elisabet is 'studying' her and has passed the story on. Furious, she threatens to hurt Elisabet until Elisabet begs her to stop, the first words Alma is sure she has heard her speak. She calls Elisabet a terrible person, then runs after her to beg forgiveness.
One night Elisabet's husband comes to the cottage and calls Alma by his wife's name; she tells him he is mistaken, and they sleep together. Alma then tells Elisabet her own story: she wanted the one thing she lacked, motherhood, conceived, regretted it, tried and failed to end the pregnancy, and has despised the son who craves her love. Alma tells it twice, and the two women's faces merge into one. Alma insists she is not Elisabet. She coaxes Elisabet into saying a single word, 'nothing', and leaves the cottage alone, as a camera crew films Elisabet and the projector from the opening runs out.
Starring
Bibi Anderssonas Alma
A young nurse assigned to a silent actress, who talks to her as she has never talked to anyone.
Alma’s story
Alma is a young nurse, engaged to Karl-Henrik, when she is given charge of Elisabet. At the cottage she talks and Elisabet listens, and one night she tells what she has told no one: a day on a beach when she and another woman drew two underage boys into sex, which was abuse, and the abortion that followed. Reading in Elisabet's letter that she is being studied, she is hurt, then furious; she threatens her, calls her a terrible person, then runs after her begging forgiveness. When Elisabet's husband takes her for his wife, she tells him he is mistaken, then sleeps with him, and cries that it is all lies. She tells Elisabet's story back to her and insists she will never be like her. She makes Elisabet say one word, 'nothing', and leaves the cottage alone.
Liv Ullmannas Elisabet Vogler
A stage actress who stopped speaking in the middle of a performance, and who listens to Alma, watches her and writes about her.
Elisabet Vogler’s story
Elisabet fell silent during Electra and has lain in a hospital bed for three months. She is shaken by footage from Vietnam of a man taking his own life, and tears up the photograph of her son. At the cottage she walks, writes letters and listens. In one letter she writes that she finds it interesting to study Alma, and repeats what Alma has confided. When Alma threatens her, she speaks: 'No, don't.' When her husband takes Alma for her, she lays Alma's hand on his cheek. Then Alma tells her her own story: she conceived to have the one thing she lacked, tried and failed to end the pregnancy, and has despised the son who craves her love. Asked for one word, she says 'nothing'. At the end a camera crew is filming her.
Margaretha Krookas The Doctor
Elisabet's doctor, who judges her silence a matter of will and sends the two women to the sea.
Gunnar Björnstrandas Mr Vogler
Elisabet's husband, who comes to the cottage one night and calls Alma by his wife's name.
Why it matters
Persona asks what happens when one person becomes the listener to another's whole life, and whether a self is something a person has or something she performs. Alma talks, confesses and is used; Elisabet, silent, takes in everything and gives nothing back, until the film suggests the two may be one. Beneath that lies motherhood: a woman who did not want the child she had, and another who ended a pregnancy and has never stopped feeling guilty about it. Bergman wrote the film in nine weeks while recovering from pneumonia. It won best film at Sweden's Guldbagge Awards, was cut for its British and American releases, and in 2012 critics polled by the British Film Institute ranked it seventeenth among the greatest films ever made. Critics have argued over its meaning ever since; Bergman said he had an idea of what it meant and would not share it.