Persona (1966) Movie analysis
The movie starts with images that have no context of different types of torture and physical pain. Vulgar and despite the movie being in black & white I could see the red blood.
You get to follow a nurse called Alma who is gonna help an actress who's a mute patient called Elizabeth.
The doctor thinks it's best that the nurse and the patient get to stay at her summer house as a sort of treatment.
The longer in to the movie the more pieces are put together. You get small little clues all the time and at the end of the movie you have come to understand it, yet not. Perhaps that's typical Ingmar Bergman, to end the movie with a "What if..." and make us ask what would happen next.
I was suprised how well made it was , I forgot that I watched it in black and white , the actors and the scenery in such a beautiful plot made me absorb the movie with all my senses. A true art work.
Don't read further if you wanna watch it, because there will be spoilers next.
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My interpretation:
We think we are following nurse Alma helping patient Elizabeth but what's really going on is the nurse and the patient are two different personalities; in the same body.
The nurse Alma, is what we in identity disorder terms call the prosecutor or gatekeeper. Meaning she is the one who knows the truth about the trauma, and creates the lies to protect the so called system , as in all personalities inside including the real person.
The patient Elizabeth, is mute because she's an alter, a personality and not real.
In the movie there's a line about why she isn't speaking. It goes something like this: "If you're masking yourself and using words you're lying but if you're just silent, no one can say you're a liar"
The trauma hidden was an unwanted child, (from manipulation and rape) who was neglected and abused by Elizabeth. That's the images we get to see in the very start of the movie. Torture and abuse.
Alma is in one way an alter ego too as she has all the characteristics Elizabeth has not. She cheated on her husband, had an abortion and was more free and independent.
Alma abuse Elizabeth in the movie to make her talk. It works. What really happens is mentally, Elizabeth is trying to reach her repressed trauma and start talking.
In the movie Elizabeth is tall and has long brown hair while Alma the nurse is petite with short blond hair. But there's really only one patient, and her name is Elizabeth, but with the looks of Alma. Aka; There is no nurse Alma.
You get to see a scene when real Elizabeth for a moment meets her husband and she goes: "You're not my husband, you're Elizabeth's husband" and after a while she fronts as it's called, and is herself for a short moment when she kiss her husband and knows she has a son and the trauma and knows she's institutioned with multiple personalities, and begs to get better and to be free of the suffers. That feeling is also portrayed through nurse Alma who vents endlessly to muted Elizabeth and goes through the whole register of emotions, the emotions real Elizabeth is dissociated from.
Maybe my analysis is a bit biased since I myself suffer from an identity disorder and I could resemble the personalities in Elizabeth. But this movie was too fascinating to not write about.
You get to follow a nurse called Alma who is gonna help an actress who's a mute patient called Elizabeth.
The doctor thinks it's best that the nurse and the patient get to stay at her summer house as a sort of treatment.
The longer in to the movie the more pieces are put together. You get small little clues all the time and at the end of the movie you have come to understand it, yet not. Perhaps that's typical Ingmar Bergman, to end the movie with a "What if..." and make us ask what would happen next.
I was suprised how well made it was , I forgot that I watched it in black and white , the actors and the scenery in such a beautiful plot made me absorb the movie with all my senses. A true art work.
Don't read further if you wanna watch it, because there will be spoilers next.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
⚠ Spoiler alert
.
.
.
⚠
.
.
.⚠
.
.
⚠ Spoiler alert
.
.
.
.
.⚠
.
⚠
.
.
My interpretation:
We think we are following nurse Alma helping patient Elizabeth but what's really going on is the nurse and the patient are two different personalities; in the same body.
The nurse Alma, is what we in identity disorder terms call the prosecutor or gatekeeper. Meaning she is the one who knows the truth about the trauma, and creates the lies to protect the so called system , as in all personalities inside including the real person.
The patient Elizabeth, is mute because she's an alter, a personality and not real.
In the movie there's a line about why she isn't speaking. It goes something like this: "If you're masking yourself and using words you're lying but if you're just silent, no one can say you're a liar"
The trauma hidden was an unwanted child, (from manipulation and rape) who was neglected and abused by Elizabeth. That's the images we get to see in the very start of the movie. Torture and abuse.
Alma is in one way an alter ego too as she has all the characteristics Elizabeth has not. She cheated on her husband, had an abortion and was more free and independent.
Alma abuse Elizabeth in the movie to make her talk. It works. What really happens is mentally, Elizabeth is trying to reach her repressed trauma and start talking.
In the movie Elizabeth is tall and has long brown hair while Alma the nurse is petite with short blond hair. But there's really only one patient, and her name is Elizabeth, but with the looks of Alma. Aka; There is no nurse Alma.
You get to see a scene when real Elizabeth for a moment meets her husband and she goes: "You're not my husband, you're Elizabeth's husband" and after a while she fronts as it's called, and is herself for a short moment when she kiss her husband and knows she has a son and the trauma and knows she's institutioned with multiple personalities, and begs to get better and to be free of the suffers. That feeling is also portrayed through nurse Alma who vents endlessly to muted Elizabeth and goes through the whole register of emotions, the emotions real Elizabeth is dissociated from.
Maybe my analysis is a bit biased since I myself suffer from an identity disorder and I could resemble the personalities in Elizabeth. But this movie was too fascinating to not write about.
31-35, F
