Movie Review: Persona (1966)
The movie starts out with a weird scene that seems to be completely unrelated to the actual movie. It’ll make more sense once you identify the real premise of the movie however. What I found really interesting about the movie was the fact that there was basically no film score (with the sole exception of the opening and ending scene; they used aleatoric atonal music for those scenes which is quite avant-garde). It worked pretty well with the psychologically intense ambiance of the movie. A film score would’ve diverted attention away from the scenes in which the tension between the two protagonists manifested itself.
Another thing that is worth mentioning is the almost dreamy nature of the movie. It seems very bizarre and surreal at times. Don’t be fooled however. This was done deliberately. The movie is trying to tell you something. Which is ultimately the reason why this movie won’t appeal to everybody. Unless you decipher its true meaning it’ll appear to be quite nonsensical in nature, I assure you.
As far as execution is concerned this movie is in a class of its own. I’ve rarely seen such a well-executed movie about such a complex topic. Exploring the subtleties of human psychology in a visual way without being too artsy fartsy.
p.s.
When I saw the movie for the first time I was quite confused. I didn’t quite get it because I took it literally. After some research however I learned that this movie is actually a very clever metaphor and things started to make a whole lot more sense all the sudden. Since I don’t want to spoil the movie I’ll say this much: the title of the movie is really fitting because it’s a clue as to what is actually happening in the movie. Just not in the “physical” sense. All of this happens in the protagonists head. Maybe this’ll help you figure it out.
Final Verdict: Highly recommendable (but you have to figure the movie out)
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060827/
Ontology: #movie #review #drama #thriller #blackandwhite #psychological #intellectual #Swedish #Sweden #meta #complex
