Product: Persona (1967)
Rating: 4.0
An opinion and a question
Although I don't find this movie quite as awe inspiring as other reviewers here, I'm certainly not going to argue it's not great film making. I found it perhaps just a little too much of an intellectual puzzle; Cries and Whispers (my personal Bergman favorite) I find to be more sensually involving, even more philosophically probing (because it is less intellectual, more human). Well--it's an opinion; feel free to disagree. Now here's the question: What the heck is going on in this film's final scene? First we see the nurse as she sees the actress packing. Then we see no more of the actress, but continue to see the nurse packing up and catching the bus for home. Then a quick shot of cameras in the process of filming, and a glimpse of a woman being filmed; who she is, what she's doing, I cannot tell. After having seen the nurse convince the actress to speak that one fatal word, "Nothing," I was left wondering if perhaps the nurse had, in the end, committed murder? Perhaps this is an absurd conclusion to reach--perhaps the actress had already left and that's her we catch a glimpse of, having returned to being an actress again? Or perhaps she's symbolically dead? I dunno--but here you have my problem with the film: as an intellectual puzzle, I find it impossible to satisfactorily solve. I don't mind chewing on intellectual PROBLEMS for months and years on end--that's what life's about. But PUZZLES it seems to me ought to have solutions. Anybody got one?