Persona
Liv Ullman, in the first of her many collaborations with Bergman, plays Elisabet, an actress inexplicably struck mute, and now cared for by nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) in a remote seaside cottage, a relationship that ebbs and flows as each woman strives for superiority. The more the nurse relates the details of her own private life, the more control the actress assumes. The sense of psychological breakdown is communicated directly to the audience, both in the superlative performances and in Bergman’s groundbreaking formal devices, which include a depiction of the film itself breaking down as it speeds through a projector.
Director
Language
Swedish
Country
Sweden