Persona

One of Ingmar Bergman’s most enigmatic works, Persona is the story of an actress who has suddenly fallen mute (Liv Ullman) and retreats to the countryside with her nurse (Bibi Andersson) to convalesce. But this bucolic interlude exacts a psychological toll on the two women, especially the garrulous caretaker, who grows increasingly intimate with, and ultimately resentful of, her silent charge. Aided by Sven Nykvist’s elegant camerawork and artful punctuations in the sound design, an air of violent eroticism prevails throughout. Persona, one of the great movies about the precarious nature of identity, shudders with neurotic life.