Persona...

I recently watched the 1966 film "Persona" (Film by Ernst Ingmar Bergman).. and want to extend my thoughts about it here, as to be honest no one I know has either watched it or would be interested to hear about it (at least that is what I think to be true), but then again nobody visits this blog anyway so essentially I am rambling to myself once again, but I figure at least this blog-site can be my legacy once my flesh decides to perish into oblivion or wherever it ends up, which could be another blog post idea 💡. So anyway, this movie was interesting in the sense it had many open interpretations, and if you understand where to look you will see them, but yet again this is also what makes up the entire film. The layers of artistic representations are on full display, searching for what they could mean is half the battle or for some half the fun of watching it. We are drawn into the lives of two women or albeit it could be one woman once you reach the concluding scenes, (or at least they share an emotional resonance, and the split blending into One) the patient (Elizabeth) is an actress turned mute whilst the nurse (Sister Alma) attending to her is the one whom does all the talking, which I could interpret that the self has been split, one the observer the other is the one that is of restless chatter, continuously moving, the role player? It could take many avenues of thought but i'll leave it here. The film is not direct in obvious ways, for me it was similar to Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus", it is visual high art, that penetrates and pierces through layers, leaving it up to the watcher or reader to interpret the deeper meanings, which is a trait of someone whom meddles in the existential questions and it's no surprise that he was also influenced by someone such as Carl Jung,. It is said that Ingmar used cinema as a way to explore and cast our his own demons which perhaps equal the unpleasant truths or at least the exploration of the psyche that we see play out in his films. Anyhow back to the film.

A paragraph I jotted down shortly after (also blended with some of my previous writings) watching it is as follows,

We play with the decorations of our facade and tinker with the mechanical, we create convulsions from the inner void which is carved out from the neglect of self. We become shadows of the past whilst the mind plays tug of war with itself, the splitting manifesting confusions welded together through denial and cognitive dissonance. Most things are strategically placed distractions from the truth which continue to be bent out of shape, the more one searches for the truth the more it bends out of shape, like trying to touch a holographic image, to the naked eye it is real, but when you reach out to touch it, it becomes just another illusion within the illusions of our distorted or perceived reality..To understand the self is a life voyage through intangible seas. Sometimes we lean into our melodramatic tragedies and wear its seductive mask of self pity, which then wallows inside itself, perceiving it to be the work of outside forces. When the persona is shattered and presented to us as a falsity or perhaps we see it as a mirror of necessity (which in someways it is how we get by in society, another double edged sword), it is then we get a glimpse into our unwritten selves, and feel betrayed by ourselves in someways. It can be messy, confusing and uncomfortable. How do we continue as we always have? Short answer is, we can't, well not without a conscious suppression anyhow. We must open the reservoir within and hold that space dear.

Also something I have previously written could tie into this, which is that most people set their own traps, they crunch down on themselves, the traps restrict the movements of their mind, usually setting them all in a straight narrow line, the mind has hardly any movement or spaces to go, the traps set on the border and inside all pigments of their personality, the edges never frayed, they neatly present themselves as one set of perfectly placed icons awaiting the instructions to be deployed into the theatrics of others, the traps always closing inwards perceiving it to be the work of others. Here I can see a correlation between how society asks us to be and how reality really is, and how many people act rigid and without fluidity which goes against reality, hence one reason that the fractured process presents itself or is exposed through immense frustration or even a type of awakening. Take these two lines from the film for example, (Sister Alma talking to Elizabeth)

"Your'e acting healthy so well that everyone believes you"

"Maybe you would be better if you allowed yourself to be what you are".

It is clear that we all play roles or have this persona aspect, it would be almost impossible to get along in society without it, but at what point can it become unhealthy or self-deceiving? Does it even start off in a kind of self-deception? There are so many different rotational understandings or interpretations we can have about this, unlimited answers to the one question, I leave the book open for the words to change at any given moment, I don't think it is ever definitive, it is more of a probing of ponder, a contemplation of the many.. pointless you may ask, perhaps it is, but at the same time there is a point, it can be pointless and pointed at the same time, don't understand what i mean? Just read some of my other writings.. i'm still understanding my understanding of it.. Did i mention i love paradox's, contradictions, duality & metaphor's, sorry if its confusing, then again confusion can be the basis for building clarity, okay ill stop it now.

Back to the movie analysis, probably my favourite scene is when the doctor is talking to the patient (Elizabeth) before she leaves to be treated by Sister Alma..The doctor says at the beginning of this conversation that seeing as Elizabeth doesn't want to go home, she can go to her beach house, to work with or be under the care of the nurse Sister Alma, it could be interpreted as seeing as she has finally lost her way, lost her mask, her persona, she can not go back to it, at least not in the same way, and that she will now reside in the existential house where she can begin to know herself better, perhaps until she can integrate the shadow and be authentic in the world, also the doctor is standing over Elizabeth, like a shadow from above, something larger than herself, something wiser, anyhow she goes on to say,

"You think I don't understand, the hopeless dream of being. Not seeming to be, but of being. Conscious and awake at every moment. Vigilant. At the same time, the chasm between what you are to others and what you are to yourself, the feeling of vertigo and the constant hunger to be unmasked once and for all , of being analysed, dissected, to be seen through, maybe even annihilated. Every word a lie, every gesture a falsehood, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar, one doesn't do things like that. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in, then you needn't play any roles, wear any masks or make false gestures, so you might think, but reality plays nasty tricks on you, reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't water tight enough. Life oozes in from all sides. You're forced to react. No one asks whether its genuine or not, whether you're lying or telling the truth. Questions like that matter in the theater, and hardly even there. I understand you Elizabeth. I understand that you're not speaking or moving, that you've turned this apathy into a fantastic setup. I understand and admire you. I think you should play this part until its played out, until its no longer interesting. Then you can drop it, just as you eventually drop all your other roles." End quote.

So even apathy is a role? What is the true substance of being ? Attaching to any ideology is a type of role.. so what about belief then? For me I guess it just comes back to art being the ultimate intangible truth of oneself. I could take this so many ways.. which way is best? All of them? Well perhaps I could get around to all of them if infinity blessed itself amongnst my flesh.. until then I shall blend and squash it down for the sake of this blog post.. and probably my own sanity..as well as yours.. if anyone is actually reading this post.., lolski's.. which is long for lol.. and lol which is short for laugh out loud.. omg somebody stop me.. (Jim Carey in the mask movie voice) okay enough embarrassing myself.. to be continued underneath..

Okay carrying on and with all seriousness from now on,

I think diabolical is a strong word, perhaps Elizabeth's own internal reality was diabolical, hence the breakdown and fracturing of her self, but reality is too fluid to be diabolical, that is too concrete of a word for reality, although reality can inherit a diabolical order at times, or rather a sequence of events that are diabolical in nature, actually I'm going to think more about this one, its quite the question really, that is for sure, or at least to my perception that is for sure. Anyhow if we use it to describe it in this scene then it becomes somewhat clear that she is speaking to a woman who has perhaps been pushed so far and had so much external pressure of her reality put on her that she has split from her persona, so far that she has removed herself from any external reality at all, it is easier to shut off, to not speak, to not be judged, to shy away from all grievances, to not be exposed to any suffering, to not meet anyone's expectations, to move out of the false light you thought you knew and to succumb to the shadow that inhabits the undergrowth in screaming silence. Speaking from experience? Perhaps, although it is also probable that I am highly introverted and that has played its part also, (in the sense that I have had enough solitude to kill a thousand extroverts at once, so I bend time to be on my side, maybe even a downside at times, another blog post perhaps💡) and of course the basis of it could be and more than likely is.. drum roll....childhood suppression and or trauma, I'm still searching for a better term for trauma.. trauma sounds very dramatic and over utilised, I may make up my own term, to be continued. I learn as I write, how wonderful to speak to yourself as you speak of other things.

The scene could also point to an existential crisis, the burden of existence and its frivolous matters we must engage in just to exist, which I could extend into another blog post, but for now I should grind down my thought-forms to the subject at hand otherwise my writing will be way out of context like most of my other ramblings. An interesting analysis should be made from a scene near the beginning of the movie, the doctor is talking to sister Alma about Elizabeth describing her condition,

"Let me explain her situation and the reason you have been hired to care for her.

Mrs. Vogler (Elizabeth) is an actress, as you know. During her last performance of Electra, she fell silent and looked around as if in surprise. She was silent for over a minute. She apologised afterward, saying she has the urge to laugh."

The doctor goes on to say she had tests and seems both mentally and physically well, and that it is not even some type of hysterical reaction.

Well to start off with the name "Electra" for the performance is rather intriguing, the word Electra could signify the awakening process in which the word actually originates from electricity, which in this context could mean light and or illumination of some sort. Another meaning of Electra was named by Carl Jung, the Electra complex which I have to admit I have not read deeply into but I'm aware of it. The Electra complex is a process in which a young girl competes with her mother for the attention of the father, also at this stage she can hold animosity towards her mother hence the increase of love and adoration for the father. It is also uprooted from Greek mythology in which a character called goddess Electra, which there are various versions, but for the sake of this analysis it is where Goddess Electra's mother murders her father, and Electra seeks revenge by killing her mother, so the emphasis is heavily on the mother here, I guess you could call it a mother complex in which you are seeking to destroy parts of your mother in-which you come to see in yourself, at least in the later years, it is the root of many issues in female psychology.. Thought it was all about daddy issues? Think again. So Ingmar could also be entwining this idea or be alluding to this in regards to the performance he calls "Electra". And then there is the part where she says that Elizabeth had the urge to laugh when she fell silent on stage, could it be that she finally saw the absurdity of existing this way, the absurdity of playing a role, the absurdity that as an actress that she is presumably so highly praised for is only playing a role on top of another role, wearing a mask on top of another mask? Moments of uncontrollable laughter can accompany those who see through the veil, art is suffering and its opposite is Joy, did she just switch between the two in an instant? Or rather allow the scale to slide to its extreme. Perhaps her becoming a mute is just an extended and outward form of her newly found internal silence, maybe she has finally shaken hands with the nothingness.. Her speaking causes her silence, her speaking recognising that there "is" silence. The size of her suffering is in proportion to the size of her joy . Or was it perhaps just a fleeting moment of her soul laughing in pain, in depletion of her falsity, in finally exposing the last remaining ashes of who she once was? Another interesting thing is that the doctor says she appears both mentally and physically well, perhaps what is meant is that she is going through a normal process of disintegration, a metamorphosis, an initiation of sorts, that if nursed well can be bought back from the brink of her apathy.. there's so much room for activities.. in my mind.. a.k.a. so much room for interpretations.

Then there is the little boy at the start of the film (wait i just noticed I'm going backwards with the analysis, it reminds me of some poetic prose i wrote, "By bending backwards I saw forward", carry on) whom is in a little room without many things and he reaches out to touch a projected image of his mother, could it represent the lost abandoned inner child? The projected image just that, a projection? The untouchableness of the mother complex, the woman whom is just an image, a face, a role? The insinuation that until she becomes true she will cease to really exist? The realisation that she can not reach anyone else until she has reached herself.

This analysis could go on and on, but seeing it is my first film analysis I'll snip it here.

I just pull on the threads of though-forms, to which they are rarely conclusive, the conclusion would equal a knowing, I play with thoughts, and yet only intuition (I'm not even sure if that is the right word I want to convey) or a knowing of a different kind takes place, logic and intellectual understanding do not like this place very much. My cog wheel of understanding spins on the axis of ever changing states of mind, clashing with the intellect of rational. I drink with the madness inside the unsanitised chamber of unknowing, smoke joints in the joinery of opposition, mingle with different personas of fantasy, sit with the security guards protecting my sanity dressed in uniforms of authority, where they discuss the implications of returning to the foreign land.. Finally crossing the blurry border of thresholds into the forgotten worlds of the boundless reservoir.

And ultimately..The turmoil of inner neglect forever chases affirmation through the false validity of outside conformation. The masks fall down from within and the outside corresponds accordingly..

And that is a wrap.. a continuous wrap at that, I'm never done, its never final. If i don't pull myself away from this post I'll end up with a hundred new takes on it, and change half of what I've written, that is the dilemma I face every time I write, I'll probably be back to edit this..

~Leya Hunter.