I’m always impressed with how abstract this film is given the time period in which it was made, but am at the same time put off by many of its more “artistic” moments for feeling gimmicky. There are things, like a couple of frames of an erect penis, a quick shot of a vagina, gouging out the eyes of a sheep (a clear homage to Un Chien Andalou), little animations, and a creeping tarantula, that all feel unimportant, like they are there for shock value, or to give the film some sort of edge that I don’t think it needs. I see these things so much in “art film” and video art now, perhaps they became cliches because of this film? I do like the editing of the film breaking and the pseudo splicing it back together, though. And anything involving the young boy caressing the image of the woman/women and the split screens are all very effective.
For the story, it’s difficult not to think of David Lynch’s recent output when watching this. Actress in crisis? Check. Two women confusing themselves for each other? Check. Sense of lesbian longing? Check. I’m actually really surprised that Lynch never mentions Persona when he mentions his favorite films. In general though, I thought that the story begins well but becomes a little too convoluted and also laughably melodramatic in some cases in its latter half. A story about how a woman abandoning her son and being repulsed by him made me feel like the film was going in a direction that i didn’t really care for, and then Bergman went ahead and showed the scene again all the way through. I get what that means conceptually in the film, but it was pretty frustrating having to watch a scene that I didn’t really care for twice. Made me think of Syndromes and a Century, a film in which I have much more interest in its dualities and halving.
Persona is beautiful though, and undeniably influential and groundbreaking. I just wish that I enjoyed it this time as much as I did the first time.