PERSONA (1966)

Cast

Plot

Elizabeth is a highly renowned actress who has lost her ability to speak, Alma is the nurse responsible for helping her through her psychological, rather than physica,l ailment. As the relationship between the two women develops Alma seamlessly becomes Elizabeth's voice, the start of a metamorphosis that sees the very essence of who they both are beginning to blend. Bergman's remarkable voyage of the psyche is deemed one of his very best, visually stunning and hypnotically intense. “ On the surface perhaps a precursor to Mulholland Drive, but Lynch perhaps confirmed that this would be a misleading comparison. It would also sell Persona short. Bergman's film uses (post)modernist techniques of narrative interruption to keep us alert to the unreliability of what is seen and heard, but that is only one (perhaps quite minor) strand of this moving film about what happens when someone stops talking. In an age of incessant chatter, even more now than when it was made, it is fascinating to experience what happens when that stops. A truly great and increasingly relevant film” - review from Neil Jacobs