PERSONA (1966; w/d Ingmar Bergman)

…the "I" created by an author + thru whom the author unravels
his perceptions of characters + events.
BENET’S READER’S ENCYCLOPEDIA

Begins inside projector (drama interior process of bringing film/ideas to screen; also, on mechanism of psychological projection), reels moving from cartoon bather (birth – abstracted + distilled) to slapstick (energetic childhood), tarantula (devouring, transformative Terrible Mother), dead lamb (loss of innocence: less like film clips now, more like random real life), crucifixion (foretelling resurrection to follow death), woods (ashes2ashes return to earth/nature), gate (to heaven, or) morgue (tomb: unconscious storehouse of recently-dead memories), where boy-corpse wakes (revivified childhood issues/impressions), fusses + finally caresses screen (1st from audience POV, reaching out from behind scrim as from curtained unconsc) as female faces come into focus (drawn twd imgs as twd suckling breast [cf Eberwein, FILM + THE DREAM SCREEN] – he also massaging them into shape à la clay: unconsc product of childhood experience + img-ideals also fashioning subsequent reality), followed at last by titles (preceding material informing action to follow as archetypes + lived material inform dream).

Offscreen hospital matron (superego yet to find representation in interior world) informs nurse Alma (cf similarly named "nourishing" agent in ’68 Hour o/t Wolf) about patient (particular psychic material 2B observed), famous actress Elisabeth Vogler (last name also of Wolf Alma + ’57 Magician: "world" specifically Bergman’s, from whose oeuvre opening clips came) stymied into muteness (dreamer’s remove from world of relation) during production of Electra (set into motion by father’s murder: lost connection to "masculine" consciousness + God-less world in turmoil), now prone in bed (à la morgue boy: acting out pathology of arrested childhood); Alma tells Liz about self (actress become audience ego taking backseat to unconscious in order to realize "cure"): 25 + engaged but doubting self (Liz’s loss of speech enacting her hesitance [nurse daughter of nurse the endlessly reflecting self-img]; seemingly older, tho actress Liv Ullmann actually 4 yrs Alma/Bibi Andersson’s junior: reversal of traditional mentor-student relationship), concentration on self à la analysand (whose analyst unresponsive: existential angst [when God – Liz portraying similar myth – falls silent, we begin yakking to fill void] + frustration of artist unable to make own persona "speak"/reveal/articulate questions [grasping child of opening]).

Long darkening take of Liz regarding radio (audience POV: dreamer’s reception of stimuli w/o ability to respond + filmmaker’s sadness at not being able to reach audience directly) followed by pacing room to evening news (beginning to leave shell, agitation probable cause of w/drawal, immolating Vietnamese monk à la own protest similarly devouring her: Alma paradoxical mouthpiece for unspoken grief), Alma reading her letter from Herr Vogler (communiqué from absent Self: masculine consciousness for both wmn w/ boys in past [regressive masculinity, or fantasy of masc agency in archaic youth]) before actress tears picture of son in 2 (sundering of regr masc’y echo of both impotence + split personae [wmn img of division w/i self).

Released to administrator’s summer home (Other House of unconscious reserved for habitation during break from routine world) on island (à la Wolf: at conscious remove) w/ Alma to "play out apathetic role" to end (still acting [not passive]: performing psychic function 2B observed + understood; remake wd have twist-ending revelation that Alma real patient + Liz her therapist), narrator (male voice from out of nowhere: Self later to make cameo in flesh) noting that vacation working out (lending approval, or kidding self?); Alma recounts love life (centerpiece of film: core of pathology), 1st lover married (Electra complex, interrupted à la Liz’s performance of same: desire to integrate secondary fem-self "daughter" w/ primary masculine-ego "father"), later group sex w/ 2 young boys (overcompensating for lack) while sunbathing nude on island w/ casual fem acquaintance Katarina (à la current, similarly exhibitionist situation, island à la stage as well, coupling w/ voyeurs actress/director desiring unfettered intimacy w/ audience) yielding abortion (dead boy of opening own inability to bring to term masc pwr), per fiancé.

Later, Alma (possibly) imagines Liz entering her room (A positioned à la morgue-boy: identifying w/ lost potential, in preparation for i.d.’g w/ potent Liz) + whispering to go to bed (preceding confession bringing message of peace), tho actress denies it next morning (xchg of roles/personalities A suggested already taking place for latter [Liz now w/i mind: integrated] but not for former), Alma offended while going to town to deliver letters (intercepted communiqués to outside world/conscious mind) to read of Liz’s interest in "studying" her (tables turned [as opposed to traded], film illustrating Nietzsche’s "gazing into abyss" maxim); in swimsuit (cf sunbathing: now guarded), lets Liz step on glass shard (unable to penetrate her verbally/psychologically, does it physically – thru foot as opposed to head), celluloid-burn + interrupting clips à la opening indicating film starting over (cut à la hymen or menstruation + pursuant bloody nose), A’s vision blurring (outwd title "masks" same) as she begins breakdown (she film itself, similarly broken-down + regenerating).

Alma responds to man calling for Liz (call of Self twd reunification, disembodied male voice à la earlier out-of-place narrator) + finds Herr Vogler in woods (lost in subconscious labyrinth), who addresses her as wife (in fact his counterpart [as film to filmmaker], his possible blindness seeing beyond surface); Liz manipulates Alma-as-Liz (A now actress, picking up unfinished Electra role w/ [m]other-wmn’s man), couple making love while Liz observes (in foreground: they in back of mind, she in pwr/control of fantasy-that-is-reality – i.e. director, himself now communing w/ nourishing anima) A replaying sunbathing idyll now w/ mature male, in aggressive Katarina’s place.

Alma finds Liz w/ pieced-together son-photo (echo of A-to-Herr-Vogler’s "Tell your boy his mummy is coming home," Liz on recovery path) then expostulates on her + him (camera closeup on Liz’s face, A’s voice as from w/i): encouraged by partygoer (representative of anarchic unconscious: instinctual, intuitive desire) to have child, soon resented him (cowed by responsibility – muteness as much passivity as protest – echo also of earlier concentration-camp photo kids [guilt for wishing son stillborn, ovens à la womb]), he possessed of "violent" love/need for her (persistence of archetype: need for innocence [+ regressive masculinity] 2B acknowledged + integrated into personality); scene then replays w/ Alma focus (her monologue actually addressing self + own desire to abandon equally needy Liz, faithlessness to never-seen fiancé/God similar to Liz’s revulsion twd masc-w/i), disrupted by double-exposures + finally split-screen fusion w/ Liz (no longer comparison + self-immersion: recognized [via in-camera tricks: film itself process of analysis – "to break apart" – + reconstruction in order to ascertain otherwise unreachable truth] as equal parts of whole – passive/active; repressive/nourishing; un/conscious; in/expressive; emotive/intellectual).

Narrative continuity further breaks down (film, à la Herr V, transcending chronological-spatial-superficial, to include even camera crew) as Alma back in nurse outfit (mvmt twd "uniform" conscious life), gouging wrist for Liz to vampirize (succumbing to unconscious force), then slapping her (vacillation in mind fighting wakefulness); back in hospital (higher, healing level of consciousness, more "civilized" than island), gets Liz to say "Nothing" (only words other than earlier "No, don’t!" [and possibly "Go to bed" – always negating/negative, Alma become obliterating force (source of rehabilitation, consternation caused by belief in/desire for meaning + value)]), both leaving next morning (dream-imgs having served purpose, statue-head in foreground archetypes returned to selfhood, as have A+L).

Morgue boy now confronting img of pebbly ground (earth over grave + physical reality [vs spiritual fantasy] of life, last img on island island itself), lays back down (laid to rest: resolved) as film runs out of projector (life as series of projections, death re-collection of same before confronting truth/Self) + arc light dies out (preceding film soul’s relinquishing fantasy of transcendence + meaning [while simultaneously providing/constructing same] before succumbing to darkness).