HB: Really, this one is just about helping me do my homework, as Mr. Brown had already seen the movie in question and decided to devote his time to drawing an amusing picture to embroider. Also, it’s a big ‘un, one of the movies I felt guiltiest about not having seen: Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. Seeing as the old fella finally shuffled off this mortal coil this past week, the timing seemed ripe (for the same reason, there should be some Antonioni coming up in this space too), and I’m very weak on my Bergman, having only seen, up to this point, two comedies: Smiles of a Summer Night and The Devil’s Eye.

Persona is a totally different color of horse, and yet it also has similarities to those comedies. One thing I’ve been saving up in my head, turning around and thinking about, is a piece on the joys of nihilism (as illustrated through the genre of “I Don’t Give a Fuck” songs in rap). Bergman could well play into that. The one feature on the DVD that I watched included segments from an interview with him in which he discussed the film having been inspired by being in the hospital and being anesthetized and, specifically, the pleasure of waking up and realizing that his consciousness had not existed at all for six hours. A lot of people who like Bergman–the tortured college student kind–seem to think his view of the universe is unremittingly bleak and, therefore, sad, but instead it’s that kind of amused nihilism. Life is pain, sure, but let’s move on from that when we can and start to look at the pain. That’s sort of what Persona seemed to be about.

It’s also too beautiful a film to be the work of a true depressive, and even if you didn’t know, watching it, that he had been sleeping with Bibi Andersson and would soon go on to sleep with Liv Ullman, you might be able to figure it out from the rapturous close-ups of both of them. The montage sequences at the beginning and end (there’s also one in the middle) seem to comment on the necessity of art–more obviously film, but one can extend it to any art–in order to make us able to live with one another. Ullman’s character, Elisabeth Vogler, is supposedly in the hospital/having a breakdown because she’s recognized that all interaction is a lie, based on a mask of sorts, so she determines not to speak. But, clearly, one has to have not only a persona, but personae, to function in the world. Lying is part of being human, and art is lying, so art is part of being human. Raw interaction is too difficult.

Another way one can come at Persona is to view it as a horror film. That perspective helps one understand why it’s so compelling, despite the fact that it only consists of two real characters (and only one of those talks) and its long, long sequences of no dialogue. Much like 2001, very little happens, and yet one doesn’t want to stop watching or get up and get a snack or anything. There is the feeling that, at any moment, someone might be murdered. Violence always lurks, whether passive (Alma placing a piece of broken glass where Elisabeth is sure to step on it eventually, as she walks around barefoot) or active (Alma almost hurling a pot of boiling water at Elisabeth; Elisabeth slapping Alma until her nose bleeds). Roman Polanski made Repulsion, a film I was unable to watch all of due to being completely freaked out by it, the year before, and they’d go together well. Polanski’s movie is a little more concerned with who and what is real versus not, but it’s there in Bergman’s too, and the tense sense of dread in both films comes partially from their lack of conventional plot structure, meaning the viewer can’t ever relax, knowing what’s likely to come next.

Other thoughts:

–Woody Allen’s Bergman-period movies are really very different from the real thing. They’re so talky and so much more based on family relationships, or at least identifiable relationships with clear roots. The only relationship in Persona at the beginning is nurse-patient. All others grow from it in the course of the film.

–Lars Von Trier seems like another person who’s been influenced by Bergman, although he might not say so. He has a similar cold eye and desire to poke you in yours. I also see De Palma as influenced by this film, if not by Bergman in general. Sisters seems to draw on it as a visual reference.

–Why did I like this movie so much? It’s avant-garde, slow, possibly a little pretentious, deals with insane people, and doesn’t have very much happening. Those are all strikes against it. And yet I think I’m going to give it five stars on Netflix. Theories?

Posted by teambrown on 06 Aug 2007 at 07:53 am

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