Persona (1966)

I would love to have a summer to read all that was ever written on Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966). Why it took me so long to see it is based on my belief that I had seen it. The only time it came up in conversation was when someone mentioned it in the context of all-time favourite films, where Persona is never first or second, but usually third or fourth.

The Persona I thought I'd seen was likely pieces of more obscure Bergman films that I hadn't seen all of. Amy was the last person I know who mentioned Persona to me. A couple weeks ago I saw a copy of it amongst the dreck at the East Hastings Street Value Village, and I bought it thinking of her. According to one of the floor staff, there are two guys who wait outside the doors every morning and race to the DVD section to "get all the good stuff." That Persona wasn't considered part of that stuff is partly what's wrong with the world.

If you're reading this far it might be because you've seen the film. I'm hoping you have, because I'm not going to describe it, only speak to the screen grabs I've selected for this post.

The first grab is of Nurse Alma's introduction to her patient, the actor Elisabet Vogler, who was admitted to hospital because, during a stage performance as Elektra (Elektra!), she suddenly, and more or less forever after, stops talking. Nurse Alma is a friendly young woman who, when asked to accompany a convalescent Elisabet to a desolate seaside house by one of the hospital psychiatrists, admits she might not be mentally strong enough to take on Elisabet's care. Eventually she agrees to do so, and more admissions follow. What Persona is, then, becomes in no small part a culmination of admissions -- and their consequences.

Did you notice Nurse Alma's shoes in the grab up top? Take a closer look:

Not a shoe I think of when I think of nursing. But then, what do I know about nursing? In Sweden, no less. And in 1966, when I was four.

There's so much men will never know about women's bodies, and it is for this reason that those who support The Patriarchy, inadvertently or otherwise, must not make decisions on their behalf.

Here is Elisabet's foot, the first time she misses stepping on a piece of Nurse Alma's broken glass: