This is Ingmar Bergman's chaste exploration of psychosis. It's not a horror story but a poem, and remarkable for that. This is one of the director's masterworks.
Persona doesn’t really benefit from too much thought. It’s a visceral experience that’s best felt, accepted, and left alone to rattle around in your subconscious for years to come. Rest assured that it will.
Persona still conveys a power to lift the scalp and scramble the brain, and the fact that it's out-of-time says less about it being dated than it does about it remaining a radically visionary work.
Despite its elaborate meta-game-playing, which has had a pronounced and unquantifiable influence on film culture, Persona remains intensely alive and intimate.
Bergman blends a theatrical subjectivity—scenes of the inner life that defy physical reality and depend on special effects, whether in the film lab or on set—with a tactile visual intimacy, with his characters, the objects close at hand, and the superb coastal landscape.
Persona is a riveting psychological drama. At the heart of the film lies the captivating performances from co-leads, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ulman. The cinematic compositions, captured in gorgeous black and white cinematography and direction are absolutely breathtaking. The end result is that after seeing it the first time I instantly knew that it was unquestionably one of greatest films ever made and one that will forever stick with me. This is essential viewing for mature audiences. Highest recommendation!
I only watched this movie, because it is in the 250 Top List on imdb. I watched already another Bergman movie and this one is as boring as The Seventh Seal: extremely serious, weird / artificial behaviours and weird dialogues. Persona is slightly better, because it is easier to understand, what it is about, but I dont care. So an actress is starting to be mute and get a nurse to take care of her. I dont care why she gets mute, what she thinks, what she feels.