Rating: 
Summary: Where's Criterion?
Review: The five stars is for the movie. As for MGM they've committed a sin. The picture is grainy, the special features freeze up on my copies of this and Hour of the Wolf. And the commentary on both is just awful. All this guy does is point out the obvious. "Max Von Sydow is a troubled man, the bushes..." Where's criterion with its top notch restoration and commentaries done by real scholars. Isn't MGM paying attention? They have no respect for this movie. They should have never got their hands on it.
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Summary: Intense experimental psychological study
Review: Another masterpiece from Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, this dark psychological study of two woman undergoing an existential crisis, is renown for great acting, directing, and a great script. Alma is a nurse assigned to watch Elizabeth, an actress who will not speak even though neither physically or mentally ill, at a beach house isolated from the hectic city. At first Alma gets along very well with Elizabeth who seems to listen to her, and her problems as she talks about her past and ideas of life. But soon, Alma see Elizabeth's dark nature, and is even more disturbed to find how similar she herself is to Elizabeth. This film is great, winning awards for both actresses, and for the direction by Ingmar Bergman. The style is very experimental, and always presents itself to let you know it is a film you are watching. There is a lot of difficult topics in this, and Bergman, and the two actresses handle it wonderfully, presenting the ideas clearly and very effectively. The film's intriguing story sucks you in, and builds suspense in you. Even though you can understand the film with one viewing, multiple viewing will reveal more layers, and encourage discussion. If you enjoy serious films looking at existential topics, with psychological depth, I'd highly recommend you check this out. If non-conventional films with big concepts hurts your head, stay away. 5 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: It IS cropped
Review: Unlike Hour of the Wolf and Shame, this was not incorrectly letterboxed, but the image is still cropped, zoomed in too far. Unfortunately they did not recall this one as they did the others. Recommended is the UK DVD version, available from Amazon's UK site, but you need a region free player.
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Summary: Quintessential 60s Art Film
Review: If I ever had the chance to interview Ingmar Bergman, I think the first thing I'd have to ask would be whether there is anything he might do differently if he were making this film now. The only thing that seems dated and maybe a little annoying at this late date are the various "alienation effect" devices thrown in periodically throughout the film. Sometimes they work well. other times it seems like we're being hit over the head with reminders that, yes, we are watching a film, a narrative: no, it's not reality. At the very least, the contemporary viewer watching the film on VHS or DVD must find it a little strange to see the action suddenly break when an intertitle is inserted begging our patience while they change REELS. Very likely Bergman would enjoy the irony in this development. I know that many readers will think that I'm quibbling on this point. PERSONA is a masterpiece on so many levels (and yes, I do think it's a five star movie), it hardly seems fair to focus on what only some people might find a flaw. But I can't help thinking that the film's power is at least somewhat undermined by occasional interruptions, the surreal montages that seem to take us from Bergman's stark Nordic landscape to Dali's Andalusia. Which maybe precisely the effect Bergman wanted. There's a good chance that he'd end this imaginary interview right there and tell me to get a life...or maybe a Liv.
Rating:
Summary: Bergman's Labyrinths
Review: MGM has released this staple of world cinema with high quality resolution and readable yellow subtitles (to replace the occaisonally indescipherable white on most celluoid prints). Time and several dozen viewings have not dulled the effect of this puzzlingly beautiful film. Liv Ullman plays a theatre actress inexplicably gone mute and Bibi Andersson a nurse ordered to care for her. The nurse is also to discover why the actress has cut herself off but instead finds her own identity dissolving and merging with her patient. Bergman weaves dream sequences, recollections, replays the same situation from different perspectives, and even "breaks" the film itself in this study of dissolution, fragmentation, and collapse of all continuity. Although influenced by Strindberg's "The Stronger", Bergman built up this film out of a series of dream images which he himself could not (or would not) explain. Regardless of whatever one makes of the film's content or themes, it is hauntingly beautiful - moving from scenes of terrible and self-inflicted violence to memorable dream-like sequences, especially one where the nurse wakes up one night to find the actress in her bedroom. Though totally silent, except for the sound of a foghorn in the distance, it's a brilliantly realized sequence. Moreover, we're never sure who's dreams we're watching: as the film progresses it moves into areas where fantasy and reality, identity and illusion weave and merge. Bergman and his cameraman, Sven Nykvist, possess an amazing continuity over this difficult terrain. The move from the ostensibly real to the dream world and back is done with such dexterity that it takes several viewings and much thought to discern where the one ends and the other begins (and there's no consensus on that, either). The film may sound like a big intellectual tease but the actors ground Bergman's ideas and demonstrate that there's a lot at stake here. "Persona" anticipates many of our current concerns about how our identities are "constructed" and how fragile these constructions are. And it doesn't pall these issues with the coats of glibness and irony that filmmakers bring to this subject nowadays. Postmodern film culture in the age of Tarantino has huffily rejected the European 'art' film, of which "Persona" is one of its highest achievements, has being too deliberaely abstruse. Although this may be a first time viewer's initial reaction to this great film, "Persona" proves that abstruseness isn't always, or even necessarily, an intellectual conceit but perhaps the only clear-headed approach toward exploring the borderlands of our existenses. It's the most haunting film ever made.
Rating:
Summary: One of the five Bergman's gems
Review: Bergman begins the film with a shocking image, that constitutes one of the keys to make us drown in this bergmanian ocean.
Persona is the film in which Liv Ullman makes his actoral debut. And what kind of performance! .
In her role of nurse, she tries to get some rapport with Bibi Anderson who is literally shocked by a awful TV scene, previous to her characterization as Elektra.
Andrei Tarkovski, considered this film the best of Bergman. Somehow, the opening scene of "The mirror" , Tarkovski pays a sincere homagge to Bergman. Watch it and link with Persona.
Returning with Persona, the film is the recosntruction of a disordered puzzle of hidden emotions and feelings of the opera singer. The deep admiration of the nurse by this artist, engages her in a commitment that goes beyond her mission.
You can watch how slowly this troubled soul shows before us with all its ugliness . The speechs are so well written that let you breathtaken, the photography and ilumination are the third actor , the camera work is so nervous like the same artist.
But when you arrive to the peak of the film and admire that melt of images, you'll check once more why Bergman (1918) is one the supreme film makers of all the Cinema story.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best ever made
Review: This is one of the best rated films of all time...and it's definetely justified. It might very well be Bergmans materpiece, and THAT says a lot. The story behind one of the greatest achievments in cinema history was (is); Liv Ullmann, Bibi Anderson, Sven Nykvisk and Ingmar Bergam....That's the whole movie !!! Only 4 people,but it doesn't get much better than this. It's perfect -
Rating:
Summary: This is For the film, LISTEN....
Review: i know you guys have serious qualms with the DVD itself and not the film, but a passing glance might cause people to think this isn't the brilliant, strangely moving film that it is. first off, that "grainy" look is how it was filmed in the first place, it enhances the creepy nature of the film (and at times, it IS quite disturbing). after multiple viewings, i'm closer to total understanding of this complex film, but i'm still not sure how to entice newbies. liv ullman and bibi anderson give power house performances that NO actress today could muster. their performances make Charleeze theron's turn in monster look less naturalistic in comparason. Bergman was a true master (also try Wild Strawberries and Seventh Seal) again, there are no true masters anymore because we live in a cynical, test-audience, money oriented age that stunts artistic growth: but that's another topic. this is a film that makes one think! and it's insipring too. power-house.
Rating:
Summary: Not the edition you'll want
Review: Can a studio present a movie any way they please after they've bought the rights for it? Apparently so. I saw Bergman's masterpiece Persona at the movies a very long time ago. Over the decades I have remembered it as shocking and terrifying, yet appealing and beautiful. I got excited when I learned of its released on DVD. Now I've watched MGM's life-less and cropped presentation of it, and associate the movie with dullness and disappointment. Bergman is a master who MGM do not respect. Tartan's release (region 0!!) of the film is supposed to be much better, but with less extras (doesn't matter to me, I just want the movie). I'm waiting for my copy to arrive :)
Rating:
Summary: MGM Persona
Review: depressing... truely depressing Worthy of MGMs demise the wretched DVD of a great film, I have waited years for.
(if this is the only way you can watch the film, by all means. If not, by the UK version until Criterion obtains rights for the unavoidable rerelease..)
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