My First Ingmar Bergman

I had first heard of Ingmar Bergman in a Woody Allen movie. Woody Allen is apparently obsessed with Bergman. Somehow, I had never had a chance to see a Bergman movie so far. However, when I was reading about some interesting movies during my last trip back home, Bergman’s Persona struck me as a highly fascinating subject and I downloaded it. Last Sunday, I finally got to see the much talked about masterpiece. My first Ingmar Bergman.



The movie explores a "weird" and complicated relationship between and merging and the eventual de-merging of the personalities of two people-an actress who has lost her will to speak and a young nurse who has been deputed to take care of her.

The film begins with an extremely intriguing montage, the most haunting one being the killing of the sheep. Throughout the film, the imagery is quite stark most of the times. There is a constant eerie feel to everything. What calms the screen is the nurse’s character. It is like the spark of life in the broader landscape of death. The movie takes extremely interesting turns at various steps before it completely falls into the surrealist zone towards the end. There are a number of highly compelling scenes. My favourite scene is when the nurse narrates her ménage a trois experience to the actress and also when she reads the letter by the actress which describes the nurse’s confessions as an “experiment”.

Open-ended, well layered and beautifully crafted. Just the way I like them, most of the times! :)