Famed stage stress Elisabeth Vogler suffers a moment of blankness during a performance and the next day lapses into total silence. A nurse is put in charge of the actress and finds that that actress's persona is melding with hers.
Persona probes the depths of the human psyche, even as it examines the ways in which people tell stories and create new realities. Its themes are timeless, and it still holds up today.
This is the ultimate celluloid Rorschach test, where the production refuses to offer a straightforward solution to the maze of thorny challenges.
Sean Axmaker
Parallax View
April 03, 2014
The intimacy and the intensity of the camera's focus and the increasingly naked confessions and accusations in the dialogue create one of the most intense character pieces put on film.
Bergman blends a theatrical subjectivity with a tactile visual intimacy, with his characters, the objects close at hand, and the superb coastal landscape.
