Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona” is like a lucid dream; the images are so vivid long after you’ve left it, but it feels impossible to describe even as it’s happening. It’s a shocking, intense masterpiece that I am not yet fully equipped to write about.
Bergman’s films always connect on a gut, spiritual level. His early masterpieces “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal” are both deeply religious and symbolic works of art, and his later masterpiece “Fanny and Alexander” is a more down to Earth art house feature, one that is tender and disturbing at once.
“Persona” is rooted deeply in both approaches, and yet its starkly avant-garde styling and free-form, utterly pretentious story and editing makes it an extremely perplexing watch. Somehow though, Bergman is a talented enough director to overcome the idea that his film is pretentious at all. “Persona” is raw and deeply emotional, an extremely gut wrenching story that embodies the naked existence of man and of art. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Persona”