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Movies & TV

Persona

PERSONA (Criterion, 1966) D: Ingmar Bergman, w/ Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson. Rating: NNNNN DVD/Blu-ray package: NNNNN Rating: NNNNN


Ingmar Bergman’s Persona combines absorbing psychological drama and naturalistic acting with film techniques designed to keep you aware that you’re looking at a movie. It provokes a complex web of subtle thoughts and feelings on the nature of the self and the possibility of living without our social masks, as well as on the nature of cinema itself.

During a performance, famed actor Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullmann) stops talking. Doctors find no medical cause, and recommend that Vogler and her nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), spend the summer at a remote island cottage. There, the two women grow closer, but not in the usual way of troubled-soul-and-helpful-healer movies.

You’ll find several interpretations of Persona’s meaning and accounts of how it was created in the thoughtful extras package. Also, in deeply moving feature-length doc Liv & Ingmar, Ullmann looks back on her tempestuous affair and 50-year friendship with Bergman.

EXTRAS Ullmann and Bergman doc archival interviews with Bergman, Ullmann, Andersson new interviews with Ullmann, filmmaker Paul Schrader on-set footage visual essay essay booklet. Swedish audio. English subtitles.

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