Being and Reality According to Ingmar Bergman

“The anxiety we carry with us, all our broken dreams, the inexplicable cruelty, the fear of death, the painful insight into our earthly condition have worn out our hope of a divine salvation.  The cries of our faith and doubt against the darkness of the silence are terrible proof of our loneliness and fear.”

It is impossible to do a complete, definitive critique of Ingmar Bergman’s film, Persona (1966).  I am incapable of dissecting art, and so I will refrain from the deconstruction of Bergman’s vision.  However, the images are provoking me, even after I had finished viewing them, and the provocation is imposing itself on me.  I must say something.

When I first saw Persona, which must have been about seven years ago, my interpretation hinged on the obsession whether Alma and Elisabet are one and the same person.  Elisabet, a theatre actress, finishing her role as Elektra, is suffering some kind of nervous breakdown.  Alma, her nurse, is asked (or rather, told) to leave the hospital and go to the seaside for a genuine rest.  Revelations ensue during this time of intended rest.

Seeing the film again, seven years later, I am not so much obsessed with who is who (literally).  I have let myself become part of the film, I have entered Bergman’s vision and have not constrained my body or mind.  Do with me what you will.  I am not obsessed in finding the answer, the key to opening up the puzzle of Persona.  I am still thinking about who is who, but in a metaphysical sense.

Bergman is concerned with being and reality.  Implicitly, the film speaks of Heideggerian ontological finality--we are only composed of being-toward-death.  Bergman always grapples with big philosophical questions.  Persona is dark, it reflects the chaotic world of the time it was made, the senselessness of human actions.  And, of course, the everlasting question of what is the meaning of it all and why are we here in the first place?

Much of Persona’s substance depends on the dynamic which is created between Elisabet and Alma (at times, I wondered how much of the fictional dynamic was also a real dynamic between Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman as they struggled for a particular form of power through the eyes of Bergman, the director, and Bergman, the man—but this is, after all, a mere speculation on my part).

What is dialogue if only one person speaks?  Alma speaks.  Elisabet listens.  But is Elisabet truly listening?  Elisabet is amused by Alma’s existential explorations.  Alma is convinced that for the first time, she is being heard and seen but Elisabet’s gaze is not that of recognition—it is a gaze of amusement and dominance.  It is a gaze of distance, of implied judgment.  Elisabet offers no compassion or mercy following Alma’s extended confessions.  Even in their physical closeness, small attempts at caresses, Alma is self-effacing and self-denying.  Elisabet is the Master, Alma is the Slave, in the Hegelian dialectic of being.  Elisabet affirms her own existence through the enactment of silence, however, paradoxically, she is experiencing the burden of being. 

Question becomes who is more courageous, Alma or Elisabet?  Alma, in her naïve vulnerability, or Elisabet in her self-imposed stoicism?  The more Alma diminishes her “I,” the more Elisabet is taking over.  The famous scene, where the two women are standing in the bedroom, surrounded by curtains, and wind, and noiseless noise is the moment of both happy and unhappy union.  A possibility of the recognition of the Self and the Other arises, however it would appear that a metaphysical take over is happening right before our eyes.  Who is acting according to their own will, and who is submitting to the will of the Other?  Suddenly, it is not clear who is the Master and who is the Slave.

To say that there is one turning point in the film is an inadequate critique of the film.  There are many.  The film does not follow a strict linear pattern of story telling.  However, one such moment does occur when Alma reads Elisabet’s letters addressed to the doctor.  In them, she describes Alma as an interesting character to study.  This also brings up a tension between ethics and aesthetics: when is an artist seeing the humanity of the other person, and when is the person a mere object to be seen through the lens of the camera?

Instead of offering mercy and forgiveness, Alma retaliates.  She becomes cold and wishes suffering upon Elisabet.  Alma stops being Elisabet’s caretaker.  The glass on the ground shatters and so do other pretenses on the screen.  The screen shatters right before our eyes, beginning with an image of Alma’s face—visible only slightly as she is veiled behind the curtain.  Alma, a naïve questioner of human existence, becomes an existential sadist in order to survive the sorrows of the world.  

But nothing changes, not for a long time.  Elisabet’s silence is the destroyer of Alma’s being.  Alma depends on Elisabet’s voice to exist.  Even the “breakthrough” is not a breakthrough.  It is as if Bergman is telling us that you cannot be vulnerable and “authentic” for too long—it will hurt, the pain will be your constant companion.  In order to exist, we must wear a Greek mask to save ourselves from the “unbearable lightness of being.”  Change?  Who wants to change, and lose who you are? 

Alma and Elisabet (whether they are one and the same person is almost of no importance) are vehicles of Bergman’s expression of fear, dread and the ever present possibility of self-annihilation.  This vision is realized through the use of light and extreme close ups.  Whether the image is broken before us, whether there are series of images fleeting before our eyes, whether the face slowly fades into darkness and becomes lit again—all of these reveal the extent of Bergman’s vision.  But this would not have been possible if Sven Nykvist did not understand Bergman’s philosophical vision.  The use of light, the tension between concealment and illumination, the framing of the images made possible through the framing of body and face—all correspond to the Bergman’s script.

As the film moves towards the end, the images and words are getting more and more abstract.  Film is fading from existence, there are limitations to art.  The disturbing, funny and perverse images we are exposed to at the beginning (perhaps having the element of foreshadowing?) are revisiting us again, in a different form. 

Empty screams and cries.  The more you try to understand the Self and the Other, the further you move from such reality.  The Self and the Other become an impenetrable fortress.  The mystery of the other person overwhelms you and to escape truth, you put on a Greek mask, once again, refusing the access of vulnerability and the Other, which constantly knocks on your door.

Wakefulness, sleep, insomnia—help!—the blanket is too short, I must cover my feet—I want to sleep, away from the world, away from reality—let me not be. 

I cannot see you.  You are veiled.  You will always be veiled.  I will only catch a glimpse of you.  I will only experience a moment of elevation, a moment of union with you, before you are, once again, separated from me.