Persona Essay

Persona is an experimental film about the confusing and twisted relationship of a mute actress and her nurse. As the film progresses, the lines between their separate identities begin to blur and their roles reverse; it becomes increasingly more difficult to differentiate the actual patient and the nurse. Transitionally, the overall tone of the plot changes and the legitimacy of either woman's actual existence comes into question. Consequently, It seems less likely that Alma and Elisabet are undergoing a state of metamorphosis into one entity and more likely that each woman is on an opposite side of the same coin. They share a symbiotic relationship in a reality where both not only exist, but metaphorically symbolize and completely contrast one another.

The images in the beginning montage not only provide insight to events that chronologically predates the actual story in the film, but they also symbolically introduce various complex motifs and ideas that are explored throughout the movie. While the black-and-white imagery throughout the movie appears to ironically juxtapose the Grey area that Alma and Elisabet explore through their identities. It becomes more transparent that the stark contrast between black and white symbolizes both women separately, and that their relationship is found between the black and white.This symbolism is apparent when; Shrouded in black and white imagery, Alma was lying on her bed, Elisabet passed through a thin white curtain to Alma's bedroom, and crossed into the adjacent room and was engulfed in a bright radiance. Then Elisabet returns to the bedroom and united with Alma, there faces positioned gently next to each other they slowly dissolve into the darkness that engulfs the frame.

Furthermore, there is a juxtapositional symmetry throughout the entire movie that ranges from the setting of the film, to the use of light and the relationship between Alma and Elisabet. The paradoxical idea that something can be the same and completely different is an idea that is experimented with throughout the entire film. The final scene is shown from two different perspectives in order to capture the extreme difference between the reactions from both women. Elisabet, who must face the abandonment of her own son, is visibly frightened and filled with shame as Alma recreates the nightmares of her past mistakes. Alma, however, delivers this truth very sternly with a sense of duty and little emotion. After she is finished, both of their faces fuse together. This scene verifies their contradictory dual relationship and gives insight to the nature of their duality. They are on opposite sides of the spectrum in almost every way, which results in a coexistence that relay's on the counter-balance of the others existence. Although they are completely different from one another, their existence is dependent on one another.