Cinema
Persona
Ingmar Bergman · 1966
Synopsis
In the middle of a performance of Electra, the actress Elisabet Vogler suddenly stops speaking. After a stay in a clinic, her doctor sends her to rest in an isolated house by the sea, on an island, with a young nurse, Alma. Faced with this silence, Alma talks incessantly and ends by confiding in her patient, down to the most intimate memories. Little by little, the two women seem to merge into one another, and Alma no longer quite knows where she ends and where the other begins.
Context
In the spring of 1965, exhausted by running the Dramaten, Bergman was hospitalised with double pneumonia; there he began the screenplay, mainly to get his hand back in, thinking of Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson. The film was shot from mid-July to mid-September 1965, mostly on Fårö, the island that later became his home. In the middle of the film, the film stock seems to burn in the projector: at the first screenings, several projectionists stopped the projection, and the reels had to be labelled to reassure them.
Who it is for
Eighty-three minutes, in Swedish. The narrative refuses any explanation and seems to break off in the middle; this is intentional.
Prizes and reception
Fifth in Sight and Sound's poll of the greatest films of all time in 1972, and in the top twenty of the critics' poll in 2022.
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