First of all, I found Persona to be extremely entertaining and it maintained my interest from beginning to end. However, as soon as it was over I found myself trying to piece it together and I had an extremely hard time explaining to a friend what I had just seen.
My interpretation was that several of the events in the film did not actually happen in the narrative between the two characters. They were representation of the mental activity of Elizabeth. The scene at the end that essentially gets repeated from different perspectives was an example of this. The scene doesn't actually make sense within the context of the story because how could Alma possibly know that information about Elizabeth's history. My take on that scene was that it was a journey into Elizabeth's past and the reason it was told by Alma was because of the blending of the two personas. Elizabeth imagines her thoughts told to her by Alma because Elizabeth has suppressed her past. Alma is telling Elizabeth her thoughts and Elizabeth responds like she didn't know because she is essentially relearning her own history. Alma becomes the spokesperson for Elizabeth's repressed thoughts.
This is a somewhat far fetched theory but did anyone get a similar impression?
I wouldn't necessarily say that your theory is far fetched. I also had a hard time understanding what was going on in Persona and even after the movie was finished I had even harder time putting the pieces together. As I was watching the film I almost came to a point where I didn't know who was actually suffering from insanity (Elizabet or Sister Alma). Although, I know that Elizabet is the one who was repressing her own thoughts and was trying so hard to hide from the truth.
ReplyDeleteWhat was with the random interruptions during the movie (the part where a man is running away from a guy dressed as a skeleton)?
I'm not entirely sure what those sequences were with the skeleton and such, but I think that the child that we saw at the beginning and end was the one that the two women were discussing (the one left to go live at Elizabet's grandparent's house or something of the like). Alma said the kid was looking for a mother to love, which explains the boy holding his hand up to the image of the woman's face and why the face is blurry.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the sequences with the lamb being gutted, the tarantula, the nail in the hand, etc.