BP’s Top 100 Movie Challenge #51: Persona, by Sarah Brinks

I decided to undertake a movie challenge in 2017. This seemed like a good way to see some classic movies that I have unfortunately never seen. The Battleship Pretension Top 100 list has a good number of films I hadn’t seen before so it is a good source for my challenge. I wasn’t sure what I was in for when I started watching Persona. The opening is a strange montage of early film clips and some fairly horrific images of a crucifixion and a sheep being slaughtered. It ends with a child waking up in a morgue looking at the image of a woman’s face. I have seen a handful of Ingmar Bergman’s films in the past and enjoyed them, so I was holding out hope. Then we got into the real story of the film and I was onboard.I was impressed by Bergman’s ability to write a screenplay that so accurately captured the natural ups and downs of a female relationship. There’s a strange thing that happens in close female friendships, when you spend a lot of time together and you begin to almost meld. All of this is exaggerated in the film, but I thought there was a lot of truth there. I don’t usually notice camerawork, or at least I don’t usually pay a ton of attention to it, but Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist’s work here is just beautiful. Early in the film when Alma (Bibi Andersson) is speaking in profile the camera zooms in and it looks like her head is superimposed on Elisabet’s (Liv Ullmann) body, then Alma moves and Elisabet’s head is again attached to her body. Of course, there is the fantastic scene at the end when we hear Elisabet’s story from Alma first with the camera only on Elisabet then a second time only on Alma dressed exactly like Elisabet. It ends with their faces split in half and shown as one face with two sides. That scene is incredibly moving and also disturbing. When you hear how Elisabet felt about her own child and you see and hear it coming out of Alma’s mouth, it gives the scene an incredible impact. Also the scene where Elisabet walks down the hall bathed in light and gets Alma out bed to look in the mirror together is haunting and beautiful. It looks and feels like a dream.There are parts of the film I didn’t fully understand, such as when Elisabet’s husband comes and mistakes Alma for his wife. Also the break in the film in the middle as well as the scenes at the end when you see Bergman and the camera coming in for a shot of Alma. I interpreted it as a way to force the audience to question what was real. You, as the audience, are a part of story as much as the actors and the film makers. Whether that was his intent or not, it was my interpretation of it. Persona was a challenging film to watch, but I really responded to it. I was confused, intrigued, fascinated, and sad for both the women in the story. We all have moments of doubt and wish to separate ourselves from the parts of our lives that we don’t like. We have all also wanted to make our lives more like someone else’s life ours, or maybe just live someone else’s life for a while. And I think we all have things in our past that we have kept hidden and would like to share out loud, just to not carry the burden anymore. In those ways, Alma and Elisabet are very sympathetic characters. Bergman showcases those impulses beautifully in the film while also showing the uglier sides of each character.I’ve decided to rate each film using an arbitrary scale based on the board game Battleship (lowest: Destroyer, Submarine, Cruiser, Battleship, highest: Carrier)
Persona ranking: CarrierSarah’s ranking of the Top 100 movies… so far (100-51):
100 Fight Club
99 Manhattan
98 Badlands
97 Solaris
96 Blue Velvet
95 Duck Soup
94 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
93 Taxi Driver
92 Annie Hall
91 Werckmeister Harmonies
90 Animal House
89 Raging Bull
88 Blade Runner
87 Nashville
86 Battleship Potemkin
85 Wild Strawberries
84 La Dolce Vita
83 Sunrise
82 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
81 To Kill a Mockingbird
80 Brazil
79 JFK
78 City of God
77 Grand Illusion
76 The Player
75 The Bridge on the River Kwai
74 Memento
73 Rashomon
72 Forrest Gump
71 Back to the Future
70 Some Like it Hot
69 The Apartment
68 Last Year in Marienbad
67 Aguirre, The Wrath of God
66 Magnolia
65 City Lights
64 Fantasia
63 The Best Years of Our Lives
62 Paths of Glory
61 Network
60 Rear Window
59 Ghostbusters
58 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
57 Eyes Wide Shut
56 Finding Nemo
55 Groundhog Day
54 Persona
53 The Lives of Others
52 Amelie
51 In the Mood For Love