Persona

Aroview: Perhaps dir. Bergman's most renowned and haunting work, a study of the psychological processes between a mute patient and her repressed nurse.

Liv Ullman is a stage actress who has stopped speaking, seemingly as a protest against her own and the world's emptiness, and a nurse (Andersson) is assigned to draw her out of her shell at a remote beach house. So begins a journey of emotional empathy between the two, one filled with numerous resonances - spiritual, familial and sexual - that never really colaesce into a clear meaning (or even pattern of events), relying more on striking visual poetry and extraordinary performances for its effect. Despite many of the film's elements having now been borrowed countless times by others, this is still an essential watch, the dir.'s marked sympathy for his female protagonists was never deeper than in this groundbreaker.

Features a new, uncensored subtitle translation.

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