Persona

Name: Persona
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Released: March 6, 1967
Duration: 85 min
Rating: 86
Cast: Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Jörgen Lindström, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook

1967

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 60 Ratings

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7.9

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7.9	Your Score
7.9	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 60 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Lopert Pictures Corporation | Release Date: March 6, 1967 | Not Rated

Starring: Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Jörgen Lindström, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook

Summary: A nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personas are melding together.

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Genre(s): Drama, Thriller

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 85 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Roger Ebert

Persona is a film we return to over the years, for the beauty of its images and because we hope to understand its mysteries. Read full review

100

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

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. Read full review

100

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Persona is a film to make you shiver with fascination, or incomprehension, or desire. Read full review

Geoff Pevere

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. Read full review

Chuck Bowen

Despite its elaborate meta-game-playing, which has had a pronounced and unquantifiable influence on film culture, Persona remains intensely alive and intimate. Read full review

J. Hoberman

Persona is at once tactile and elusive, splintered and seamless, systematic and free-associative. Essentially a movie of fragments and vignettes, it is held together by the power of the artist’s craft and the centripetal force of his unconscious. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Ingmar Bergman's best film, I suppose, though it's still fairly tedious and overloaded with avant-garde cliches. Read full review

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User Reviews

katezoe

Feb 28, 2023

Brilliant acting. An existential and psychological study on who you are on the outside and inside...

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

TretyachenkoE

Apr 4, 2022

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. consider myself to be a film scholar and my favourite film is “Persona” which was released in 1966. “Persona” is a Swedish psychological drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Bibi Andersson and liv Ullman. This film both fascinates and hypnotizes and leaves the viewer with a lot of questions and a lust to watch it again and again. This is not a film, but a real masterpiece.
Bergman called “Persona” the most important film of his career. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma which swallows you completely, with its symbolism in the first shot telling a story in pictures, using the language of associations.
A boy is abandoned by his mother and his mother suffers from her inability to love him. It is pure theatre, where all the action is set in just two locations - a hospital and a house on the coast.
The director examines the personality of the actor in which lies and truth are indistinguishable. Every gesture is false and every smile is a grimace. It is filmed as a monologue with the plot built around two women - one of them is a famous actress patient and other is a nurse taking care of the first: The famous stage actress, Elisabet Volgler who has suddenly stopped speaking and is able to pronounce only two phrases in the entire film and; Alma her nurse, who is in a dialogue with herself.
A static camera. Two characters interacting actively through tantrums. Conflicts and physical contact. Andersson and Ullmann´s acting is impeccable, the camera work superb. Everything has meaning and significance. There is no empty dialogue and no special effects. Raw.
For me, this is a film about the fear of being oneself and the necessity to comply with social conventions. Everybody plays a role, adopting masks and eventually thereby loses their inner selves. Pain, fear, despair and lies occupy human life and the inability to stop, fall silent, live and realize each simple step taken and to allow oneself to be seen by others, is what make us people.
I would highly recommend “Persona”, especially if you are keen on classic cinema.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

ph4se5HIFT

Jul 13, 2019

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 thatPersona 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!… Expand

5 of 6 users found this helpful51

AJ_13

Jan 25, 2021

This movie is the biggest "wtf have I just seen" ever. Cinematography and acting are amazing.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

royalguy07

Mar 17, 2023

I'm going to keep this one simple. I have literally no clue what just happened. Good filmmaking and acting

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

o_rety

Feb 27, 2021

All modernists are the same: perversely pointless and pointlessly perverse.

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

gracjanski

Apr 12, 2020

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,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.… Expand

2 of 7 users found this helpful25

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