PERSONA is an intense and unsettling study of the symbiotic relationship between Alma, a nurse (Bibi Andersson), and Elisabeth (Liv Ullmann), an actress who has mysteriously lost the power of speech. To bring about her patient's recovery, Elisabeth's doctor asks Alma to accompany her to a private cottage by the sea. In this isolated setting, the two women fall into a strange state of codependency laced with jealousy and resentment, and eventually their identities begin to merge. PERSONA is considered one of Ingmar Bergman's greatest cinematic accomplishments and should not to be missed by anyone seriously interested in film.
Ingmar Bergman devised this ambitious drama while recovering in hospital from debilitating dizziness. Inspired by the physical similarity between Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson (playing an actress struck mute and the nurse who treats her), it explores the very nature of art and reality. Everything about this most modern of films is designed to disorientate the viewer — the inclusion of off-screen voices and the paraphernalia of film-making, the sudden melting of the frame, the disjointed structure of the narrative and, finally, the famous melding of Ullmann and Andersson's faces into a single identity. Proclaiming the artist to be both communicator and charlatan, this is an audacious, complex and unforgettable piece of work.