#but i love that passage describing wakes smile so i included it anyways | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tanglebond-tales · 3 years

Text

Wake Up, Lupin (pt. 1)

Most days, it doesn't matter what time Lupin casts the spell.

But today is Thursday, and therefore, it matters.

Ding a ling a ling, says the first alarm. Ugh. That means it's 6 o'clock. Two hours til work, one hour til portal time.

Lupin goes back to sleep.

Bing bong, says the second alarm. Ugh. Six thirty.

Wake up, Lupin. Now. Says the third alarm. Okay, the first two didn't actually SAY what they said, it was onomatopaiea. Sounds that they made translated into words. But this one actually talks.

"Uh. Portal day."

The alarm clock does not respond. It only knows how to say that one thing, repeatedly, in its tinny little voice.

"Wake up, Lupin. Now."

"Fine! Ugh. Fine. Okay. Get up, Lupin." She rolls out of bed. At least it's warm.

---

"Ugh. Why is it always so warm here."

Lupin draws the final stroke of chalk to complete the circle, and before she can even look up, there is a flash of light.

"Hello, Lupin. It's been a while."

"It's been a week." Her handler's enthusiasm at this time of morning was routinely offensive.

He steps forward out of the teleportation circle, places the supply chest on the sideboard, and makes a show of brushing the dust of the conjuring chalk from his otherwise immaculate coat. "It has! I do hope things are going well with you."

Lupin yawns and stretches. "Not bad. Work is fine. Y'know, hammering steel. Over and over."

"But you are getting plenty of practise with those elementals."

"Well, yeah, it's what I do like literally all day, so yes."

"I am glad. I take it they are co-operative."

Portal successfully cast on time, Lupin has retreated to the kitchen. She is making toast. "They're okay. I mean, some more than others, some of them are rude. Some of them are lazy. But most of them are nice. And some of them are really funny."

"I actually kind of envy you. The air realm boundary here is so thin. You're really getting the best of it. It's a wonderful assignment."

"Rui, I've been here for a year. It's getting pretty boring. And why do you always have to visit so early?"

Ruiprouice Frouce sighed. "I know. It is a long time. But we all do it. And, as you know I have a lot of people to visit. This is how I like to start my Thursdays."

She cracks some eggs into the pan and smiles at him over her shoulder. "You're sweet.” From nowhere, a wooden stirrer coalesces in her hand and she prods at the sizzling eggs. “Okay, look, I know. Rite of passage as a conjurer, blah blah. I get that, and I'm grateful for the chance. But, Pelor, am I ever ready to move on."

"Yes, Lupin." Closest thing Lupin ever had to an uncle, but he never used her nicknames. "Just one more week."

Lupin sighed. "Yes. Just one more week. Have you had breakfast?"

---

Felton Blacksand sighed, stroking his long beard and looking at the chrono dial. "Where, oh where, is Lupin."

"I'm here!" hollered Lupin, her attempt at sneaking into the office foiled by her big mouth and scrabbling feet. "I'm sorry."

"It's Thursday, already?"

"Sure is! So, what needs doing?" she inquires as she catches her breath, coils up her two long braids, and stuffs them into her beret.

Felton sighed. Not that he'd been paying close attention, but he knew the year was almost up. When he'd gotten the letter from the conjurers’ guild - sorry, the Guild of Conjurers and Summoners - he hadn't expected much, a bookish nerd maybe? Certainly not someone so talented in the trade as well as the craft. The thought of Lupin moving on was heavy on his mind.

"Crew two is on the Hammer, so they'll probably need you to help get them started. Third crew is in the mines, so Pelor willing they won't need much attention, but crew four is on the mechanisms so they'll definitely need your support. And crew five is,” he consults his clipboard, “smelting, so they may need some fires put out."

"Put out? Come on." She shimmies indignantly into her company-issue grease-spattered overalls. Frowning as she spots a couple of small tears, she jabs at them with a finger and they mend instantly.

"Loops. We're training your replacements. Give them some space to make mistakes."

Lupin was losing track of the number of sighs today. Plus one. "Can I at least stoke some fire tomorrow?"

"Sure, as long as they learn a lot today."

Lupin rolled her eyes. "Thanks, I guess."

"Crew one is on bucket detail, so keep an ear on them. They're not exactly fast."

"True, that. Anything else? Roll on end of shift, right?"

"Roll on. Don't forget to eat lunch."

"Thanks, boss." Lupin left.

---

It hadn't been an eventful shift. The air elementals had been compliant, mostly, but she'd had to talk down to a fairly large firey, and he almost didn't accept her bluster. She knew the protocol for that situation - contain with a magic circle, call for the water squad - but she was proud of the fact that she hadn't had to do that in a bit over six months. She could usually get them to listen to reason, which helped a lot since her physical stature would hardly be described as intimidating. Not that she didn’t have a few other tricks up her sleeve if it really came down to it.

Anyway. The shift was over, and Lupin was heading home. The viewing platform was on the way - about the closest thing this charming hamlet had to a tourist attraction - and hey, the Hammer in action was always a sight to see after walking up that big darn hill on her short gnome legs, so Lupin often stopped there.

Today was different, though. It was Wednesday; nearly a week had passed since Rui's last visit, and tomorrow was the big day. It was tradition in the guild to time the final day of casting with a visit, do a bit of a ceremony and whatnot, and that was tomorrow.

But more immediately, today there were some actual tourists.

A bunch of weirdoes, actually, thought Lupin as she approached the platform. In a good way, an interesting way, and certainly something she hadn't seen in a while. An elf lady with a fancy-looking bow strapped to her back. A tall human man with rippling muscles and a giant sword. A robed monk, a little girl, a birdman. A lizardy guy. Lizardy? No, more dragon-y. And a peculiar boy, not so much taller than Lupin, humanish but for the pointy, swept-back horns atop his head. Lupin somehow has an impulse to just run forward and hug him.

She suppressed it, barely, and instead sidled up to the group just as the dragony man was leaving. Adventurers? What were they doing here? "Hi! I'm Lupin!" She thrust her hand out in the vague direction of the boy with the horns.

---

It seemed like the boy with the horns had a lot on his mind, but that was okay, because Lupin loved talking about her work, and had been doing so incessantly. "And then, right? We put the molten slug on the anvil. And then, the hammer smashes it flat! So flat. Keeping that hammer working is basically my day job. You know, just the other day..."

Fancy bow lady interrupts her. "So, you work here, then?"

Lupin stops. Was that sarcasm? She wasn't used to that, around here.

"Yes, I do! So where are you guys from?" Funny how the fatigue of a whole shift in the steelworks could be erased with a little bit of chitchat.

---

It turned out they were new in town, just passing through really, and looking for somewhere to eat, drink and sleep. Lupin knew just the place - and what a coincidence, was going that way. Even if she weren't, she would have said she was. She'd learned some names, including the horn-headed fella, Russell. Walking next to him, she felt like he was in need of some cheering up.

"Hey, do you like animals?"

Russell immediately perks up. "Yes! I love animals."

"Oh, well." Lupin clasps her hands together, and then opens them a crack. A tiny nose peeks out, whiskers twitching as it samples the air, followed by the face and long body of a silky white ermine, which scurries up Lupin's arm and perches on her shoulder, looking intently at Russell.

"Russell, this is Snickers."

Russell is agog. "What.. how.. did you just.. summon that?"

"Her. And yes. Well, no. Well, she's always around, just not always in material form. I think she likes you."

Lupin bumps her shoulder into Russell's and Snickers scuttles across, disappearing up Russell's sleeve and, a moment later, poking her fuzzy face out of the neck of his armour.

Russell's excited grin has turned into barely contained paroxysms of laughter. "That.. tickles!!", he exclaims between gasps of air. "Oh yes indeed," says Lupin, "this is definitely her tickliest form. Sometimes she's a cat, sometimes a rat, we didn't really like her as a snake, but birds are a lot of fun. Though, not as cuddly."

Snickers has wriggled free of Russell's armour and parked herself on his shoulder, busying herself with nuzzling him incessantly. Accordingly, Russell has regained the power of speech. "She can change forms?”, he asks, returning the affection. “Like, whenever?"

"Oh, well it takes a little bit of doing. We have to cast a spell for it, which needs some fancy ingredients, so it's a bit of a special occasion when we do, you know?"

Russell is impressed. "That is so, so cool."

Lupin blushes a little. Finding a familiar is among the most basic of basic conjuration, but it’s nice that he's impressed. And it’s nice to be chatting to someone who doesn’t tower over her. "You think that's cool? You should see what I do for a living." She starts into telling him all about a day in the life of an elemental wrangler as they walk on.

---

"So, this guild has had you living here for a year, casting the same spell every day, over and over, to - set up a portal?"

Sitting around an assortment of tables, the adventurers are exercising their elbow muscles hefting tankards of excellent ale. Blacksand's Brewery is crowded, as always after the end of a shift at the 'works, with dwarves, gnomes, and humans, far too many of whom Lupin knows by name. The elder of the Blacksand brothers, Beren, tends bar, and waitstaff sashay busily amongst the tables.

"Yep, that's right. It'll facilitate travel and trade and blah blah blah. And it'll mean I've concluded this stage of my service to the Guild, so I'll be presented with a shiny new badge and make a bunch of people real proud, but best of all, I won't have to stay in this boring excuse for a town anymore."

"Oh come on, it's not so bad. This place is nice. And the hammer is really cool!"

"Yeah, so cool! So much going on here! And I get to hear the clanging all day every day from up close AND far away!" Lupin is thrilled to be using sarcasm again. She makes a show of counting on her fingers. "You've seen the Hammer, you're eating at Blacksand's, and you've met me. I think that about covers the highlights of the Praak experience."

She pauses to sip her ale. "I will not miss this place. I will miss some of the people, though." She looks around at the interior of the Brewery. "And, well, I might miss this place. But Praak generally? I don't think so. I don't exactly have a plan yet, but I'm sure looking out for an excuse to leave." A smiling waitress deposits several plates of delicious-smelling food on the table, and Lupin nods in acknowledgement, suddenly feeling a twinge of guilt for badmouthing the small town. She picks up the smallest plate, containing a boiled egg and small cubes of various cheeses, and sets it to one side. Snickers goes straight for it and gets to nibbling.

"But you have to finish this portal first, right?"

"Oh, yes, well, that's happening tomorrow."

Russell's eyebrows raise precipitously.

"Tomorrow! And you said there's going to be a ceremony?" Had she said that? She wasn't sure, but the thoughtful look on Russell's face stilled her tongue. "Do you know anyone who could transport someone between planes? That's a conjurer thing, right?"

Lupin hesitates, unsure of what is happening. "Well - that's something I'm studying towards, but yes, I suppose I do know some people. And yes," she anticipates his next question, "it is possible some of them might be here tomorrow."

"Huh," says Russell, his eyebrows returning to their typical stance as he grabs a chicken leg and leans back in his chair. "Gaalin will want to meet you."

"Who's Gaalin?", says Lupin.

1 note · View note

kanisrussell · 6 years

Text

Salted earth part 2

Title: Salted Earth

Word count: 2873

Relationship: F!Deputy and John Seed, Jacob Seed and F!OC

Rating: T

Summary: The collapse happens sooner than expected, and leaves Junior Deputy with John Seed in his bunker. How will the next 7 years play out?

A week later.

John’s gate.

A slight knock of the metal wall brought John back from his day dreaming. He was currently in the control room for his gate. On the monitors, he could see everything that went on in the bunker at all times. Including the live feed from Olivia’s cell. John turned his attention from the live feed to see who had come to visit him.

It was Joseph. He stood there, dressed in his white shirt and dark vest. “John.” Joseph greeted, in his usual calm and patient voice.

“Joseph.” John’s eyes met Joseph’s graze, still hidden behind the yellow aviators. ”How lovely to see you.” John replied with a smile, but he was kind of nervous. He hadn’t expected the Father, not at this hour at least.

“You have done well, brother.” Joseph brought John in for his signature forehead touch. “I wanted to thank you for bringing the deputy to our gate. They will find salvation.” Joseph praised.

“Thank you, Joseph.” John smiled.

“I was afraid of what might happen if you allowed your sin to consume your soul, but you did the right thing. We shall enter the gates of Eden together, as a family.” Joseph explained. John was overjoyed, the love he got from his brother was something he had sought after all his life. His life with the Duncan's had been devoid of everything even remotely similar to love. The concept was sometimes even foreign to him.

“I look forward to it, Joseph. But...-” John took a deep breath. “-There is a slight problem.” John underplayed the issue he had in his mind as much as he could.

“And what would that be?” Joseph asked, his voice still calm.

“Well, the deputy atoned and confessed… But… She hasn’t spoken a word since her atonement. I struggle to get her to talk.” John confessed. Joseph studied John’s face in a very intense manner, but remained silent as John tried to interpret what Joseph was thinking.

“Bring me to her.” Joseph finally ordered, and John nodded slowly. The walk to Olivia’s cell was silent, and it haunted John to no end. He hated when his brother refused to speak. John couldn’t help but feel a bit afraid; he feared what Joseph would do if something went wrong. He had always stressed that the deputy should be brought in to their folds with love.

The cell down was opened with a swing of his personal key. Joseph nodded to him, and gave John a look that could only be described as: Please leave us alone to talk. John obliged, slowly backing away from the cell door and taking a deep breath. Joseph would know what to do, he always did.

Olivia had been stationary for close to 2 days now. Not moving an inch from her position in the corner, her head buried in her knees. Her head simply couldn’t comprehend what had happened. She refused to believe Joseph was right; there was simply no way in hell. She hoped that she would wake up any moment, wake up and hear her friends call for her. But it never came, and soon she knew that it would never come.

The door opened, and she suspected that it was just another peggie that had been ordered to give her food. But no, this was different. The air had a sickening sweet taste to it, and when she looked up a bit, and cleared her eye sight of the remains of the tears, she could see a figure in a white shirt and a black vest looking at her.

It didn’t take long for her to piece together that it was indeed Joseph, but how could he be here? He was in Faith’s bunker… Wasn’t he? Her mind hurt as it raced to gain answers that might never be revealed to her.

“May I sit here, my child?” He voice was like silk, so sweet and calming. She hated it.

She didn’t answer him, she didn’t want to. But, she had to admit, she was torn between telling him to fuck off, and demanding that he explain himself. But, the words refused to roll of her tongue either way.

“I see that you are confused, you are wondering how I am here?” Joseph asked. He had to ability to read her like an open book, and she was always terrified by it.

“In the days that these bunkers were built, they connected them with tunnels to ensure maximum capacity. Nuclear war was always on the edge during those days, and it wasn’t until now it came.” Joseph explained, he shifted on the prison bed, and continued to stare her down.

She creeped as far as she could in to the corner, and covered herself as much as possible.

“Do not fear, you too will become worthy of seeing the new world. If you believe in me, and cast away your fears, your doubts and look into your heart. You are part of this family.” Joseph’s voice still sounded sweet like honey. He offered a promise, and in that very moment, she considered taking his hand. To finally listen to what he said.

But, the images of Hudson flooded her mind, of her crying her make up off, of John terrifying her. Then came the images of Pratt, all beaten to a bloody pulp. The sight of The Marshall, Burke, walking through a bliss field, forever doomed to be there. She bit the bullet, she would endure.

“Go fuck yourself.” She said, it was not more than a small whisper, but he heard it none-the-less.

“I am quite disappointing in you, deputy. But, God’s forgiving nature allows me to keep the door open for you, even after all you have done.” Joseph remarked, as he stood up.

“My family still has trials for you, but I am sure that you will see the light.” Joseph finished as he left his book on the bed table. “Please, read it, and enlighten yourself.” He requested, before leaving.

She didn’t want to, but with nothing better to do, she finally exited her corner. She sat down on the bed,, and found that it was much more comfortable than the concrete floor. Her mind picked up the hard cover book, and slowly felt the texture of the book. She sighed as she looked around the small cell. She had no idea how long it had been since the collapse happened. Joseph had probably banned all forms for time measurement and calendars. She opened the first page of the book, and read the first passage.

”If you are reading these words, then there is hope.

Hope is the rock on which we build our future.

Know that you are not alone.

Know that you are loved.”

4 days later

Time flew by, but in the bunker it was often hard to keep track away way. The father had gone back to Faith’s gate, and had been visiting Jacob’s armory every now and then. Olivia had been invested in the book she had been given by Joseph. John studied her on the live feed, taking notes for their nest session together.

Joseph’s sermon came on. It was playing quietly on the voice announcement system, but John mostly tuned out. He felt like it was his personal mission to make the deputy submit to the project full heartedly. In this train of thoughts, he realized something. He didn’t know that much about the junior deputy. Only her first name, Olivia.

Since the collapse was already here, information gathering was hard to come by, so he saw an opportunity. He was never one to pass up on an opportunity when one came knocking. Hudson had been kept on ice since the collapse happened, he didn’t have much interest in her anyway. But, he might learn more if the two believed that they were given time together without supervision.

He would pad himself on the shoulder if pride wasn’t a sin. But, he feared that the father wouldn’t approve of it, so he kept it a secret. In John’s mind, it was sometimes easier to ask for forgiveness than permission to pull these stunts. He smiled as he prepared himself for yet another meeting with the stubborn deputy.

When John wanted something done in his gate, it would always be done. No one dared ask questions, lest they be sentenced to another confession. So no one looked twice as he went down and opened the door to the cell. Olivia shocked, and in a panic threw the book underneath the sheets.

“Deputy.” John greeted with a wide, teeth showing, grin. “How are you feeling today?” He asked as he stepped further in to the room.

“Just peachy-” She said, her voice was thick with sarcasm. “- Being stuck in a bunker with you is one of my dreams come true.” Olivia elaborated.

“That’s great to hear, because I think you deserve a little reward.” John replied, and instantly saw her eyes turn from bored to curious. “You see, Deputy Hudson is really missing some company, and I think you might be the perfect playmate.” John watched her eyes light up at the mention of Hudson. She nodded, and almost began begging to see Hudson. John wanted to smile, but kept his ulterior motive hidden.

There was no way the deputy didn’t smell something rotten about it, but she simply wanted to see Hudson more. Any chance she could get, she would gladly take. John happily took her the shoulder and began leading her out of the cell, and down the narrow corridors. The followers had begun to complain about some of the conditions of the bunker, how they felt the walls were closing in and how they couldn’t see the sun anymore. He had assured them that there was nothing to worry about, but he couldn’t dismiss that he felt that way sometimes as well.

Finally, they came to the cell where Hudson was being kept. Her cell was a mess; she had been throwing everything that was throwable around. John tsked as he watched it in person. “Guess she really wants some company.” John joked as he took his key and opened the lock.

Hudson turned her attention from the broken objects to the newly opened door. She was already in attack mode, ready to fight. She had already bit the ear of the servant who served her some food. “Hudson.” John greeted. “Breaking stuff is not good manners. I would suggest keeping that wrath in check, lest we will stop serving your food again.” John threatened in the most annoying voice that only he was capable of.

“Olivia here-” John slowly padded her on the back. “-Wanted to have a play date, think we can manage that?” John asked.

Hudson nodded slowly, and John smiled. He let Olivia in to the cell. And promptly left and locked the door behind him. “Have fun.” He said as the door locked.

Olivia and Hudson stared at each other for a good long minute, before they threw each other in their arms. Olivia was not ashamed to admit that a small tear escaped down her cheek as she hugged Hudson still her was certain it was hurting her breathing.

“I thought you were dead!” Hudson proclaimed, her voice was weak and hoarse. Probably from not talking in a long time.

“I wanted to get you out...-” Olivia looked down into the concrete floor in shame. “-But I failed you, I failed everyone.” Olivia allowed the tears to flow.

“Look, Olivia-” Hudson shook her until she stopped looking away. “-We will get out of here… Somehow.” Hudson promised.

“But how? The Father said that-” Olivia was quickly interrupted by a slap.

“Don’t tell me you bought in to the bullshit of him.” Hudson was dead serious as she asked the question.

“But-But… The collapse-” Olivia began, but once again, she was overridden by Hudson’s voice.

“I don’t care if the psychopath guessed right, all I care about is getting out of here, with you preferably.” Hudson explained.

“I want to get out, but what about Pratt? And Burke?” Olivia asked concerned.

“We’ll get Pratt out as well, hopefully Burke too. Where is the Sheriff?” Hudson asked back.

“Last I heard, he was still at the prison.” Olivia answered, but she didn’t know what happened. She hoped that he was still okay. He had always believed in her, he had been the father figure in her life after her own father died.

“We’ll go look for him as well. But, we need to smart about this. How do we get out of here?” Hudson asked.

Olivia thought about it, scratching the back of her head in the search of an answer. Then, she remembered. “John’s key! It’s around his neck.” Olivia snapped her fingers and replied.

“But, how do we get it?” Hudson asked with worry.

“I have an idea, but I don’t think you will like it...-”

“John.” A voice greeted, it was at the door way. John almost fell back over his chair when he heard the voice. He had been watching Hudson and Olivia talking for the last 10 minutes, while his record player was busy giving him the sweet classical tunes of Mozart.

John quickly gathered himself and was back in his usual self. It was his older brother Jacob standing in the doorway this time, and John was more relieved. Jacob and John had both made an effort to get closer. But when they were separated, it was at a young age, and the age gap between them was quite big.

“Jacob.” John smiled. “Why haven’t you visited before?” John asked, hoping to distract him from the live feed of Olivia and Hudson.

“Things needed sorting in the armory. People need my supervision to get things done.” Jacob replied, his voice still calm and collected. That was what Jacob was known for these days, he nearly bursted into anger, he always stayed calm.

“Ah, but I missed you here! So, are things going okay now?” John asked further.

“It better be. But, I came here for something else.” Jacob admitted.

“And what might that be? I’m here if you need me, brother.” John reassured his brother.

“It’s… It’s Abigail, and Matilda” Jacob almost whispered it. He had been very secretive about the two. Few people in the project knew about it, Jacob had been very keen on keeping it that way. It was his wife and daughter respectively.

“What about them?” John asked concerned. He loved his niece and his sister in law, very much in fact.

“It’s just that… I think I have spent too much time training our forces, and not enough time with my daughter… She has grown-” Jacob gestured with his hand as he searched for the word. “-Rebellious.” He finally confessed.

“Well… She is thirteen years old. But, I don’t see the problem. You seem to know how to deal with...” John held an intentional long pause. “- Rebellious types” John smirked as he said it.

Jacob shifted a bit on his feet, and bit his under lip. “Abigail wouldn’t approve of that.” He whispered, almost non audible.

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear it.” John was overjoyed in that moment. He was a little brat of a brother.

“Abigail wouldn’t approve.” Jacob repeated, this time loud and clear.

“I see.” John was close to laughing at this point. “-So, Mr. Control doesn’t have control over his own daughter?” John asked.

“I may be your brother, but if you want to keep that baby face in good shape, I would suggest you cut it out.” Jacob threatened, and John obliged, but that didn’t stop him from laughing a bit more.

“Have you asked Joseph about it?” John then asked.

“Yes, he suggested that I give her lots of love, and accept her of the woman she will grow in to. But, I don’t know.” Jacob was actually admitting defeat. John couldn’t believe it.

“I’m sure it will blow over. All teenagers act like that. It’s just the puberty doing its things. Try and be there for her, but don’t push her.” John advised.

“Faith said the same thing.” Jacob replied.

“You came to Faith before me?!! I’m hurt.” John put on his sad puppy eyes.

“You don’t have any track record.” Jacob swiftly added.

“Then why did you come to me at all?” John asked.

“Because I wanted your input as well.” Jacob confessed. “I need time to think about it. Thank you, truly.” Jacob said, and gave John a hug. John hadn’t received a hug from Jacob in a long time, and was quite touched to get one. With that, Jacob left again.

As John watched him disappear in to the corridor, he turned his attention from the back of Jacob’s camo jacket and onto the screen before him. He heard the last words of the conversation going on.

“Then that’s the plan. Remember what I said.” It was Olivia, and John was beginning to be pissed that he had missed the conversation. But, he stayed relatively calm. He knew he had everything under control. There was no need to worry.

#Far Cry 5 #far cry new dawn #joseph seed #john seed #jacob seed

8 notes · View notes

ratherhavetheblues · 6 years

Text

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘PERSONA’: “Just what kind of person are you, anyway?”

In some ways, the output of films by Ingmar Bergman could be called an early rendition of serial drama, minus the TV and plus the theatrical rhetoric. That medieval couplet, The Seventh Seal (1957), and, The Virgin Spring (1960), introduces an “impossible” and necessary “trick,” pertaining to acrobatics and juggling. And the rest is about how the hell it’s done.

The weighty reflective saga therewith, coincides, for us in the new millennium, with a film market allergic to “weighty reflective sagas.” Getting on with bucket lists becomes a particularly insidious concern, insofar as the temptation to dip into a so-called masterpiece (and nothing else) is exactly anathematic to the tenor of the work. This difficulty requires an acrobatic feat in order to prime the spectacle to its best futurity. Included in this maneuver, therefore—and we have to admit that even in the 1960’s when the supposed Mona Lisa, namely, Persona (1966), was making some noise, no one, including Woody Allen, had a serious clue—would be pretty much disregarding the pretenders and watching for the few who well know what investigative popularity is worth on this questionable planet.

Persona is not a one-off and any effort to approach it that way is doomed. The opening passage of the film entails a young, bespectacled boy, played by child actor, Jorgen Lindstrom. His action spans a corpse in a morgue and a fervent stroking of a large portrait of a beautiful woman’s face. In the film, The Silence(1963), that same child, called Johan, encounters, with those same schoolboy, round-lens glasses, turbulence in trying to come to a harmony with his attractive, dangerously reckless mother; and, as a default choice, his beautiful, careful aunt. The painful and obscure action of Persona cannot come to coherence in the absence of a rigorous examination of The Silence. As it happens, Elisabet, the protagonist of Persona and a famous stage actress, stages a many-months refusal to speak and refusal to deal with her husband and son—sharply curtailing her paying career but getting down to business with the unfinished business of reckless, elusive Anna, in the film of three years before, where interplay shatters upon irreconcilable intentions. Whereas Anna shoots the works and hopes for serendipity, Elisabet, the occupier of designs, has a plan. Seemingly inert, particularly at the first stages when she is bedridden, she will soon be more overtly acrobatic, in her own eccentric ways. Moreover, despite Olympian disdain, she will, with characteristic undemonstrativeness, endeavor to put into play a juggling act whereby seemingly errant trajectories become welcomed constituents.

In order to fathom this peculiar action, we must highlight, in the spirit of the four Bergman films we have touched upon in previous blogs, the remarkable cinematic physicality raining down upon figures whom the unwary might assume to be in the midst of a fairly common medical treatment regime. That prelude, locating the same player in two films, has been designed as an introduction of the dynamics of the cosmos (which humans play an important part in), not the kick-off of a melodrama of rational souls being troubled and thereby—hopefully—rescued. One close look at the abysses of this storm, and the idea of rescue has been obviated. (The continuity of risk-takers having reached a showdown whereby a new plateau of outrageousness must be explored comprises the real “narrative” here, and everywhere Bergman chooses to aim. The Silence and Persona constitute a conclave of badass mommies fumbling the gentle love intrinsic to their heresies. So, too, Claire Denis, carrying the Bergman crisis in our century, with, for instance, her White Material.)

The masterful cornucopia of rapid, disconcerting camera cuts at the beginning of the mystery (whereby Bergman’s imagination becomes public through the exceptional cinematography of Sven Nykvist) coincides with the production team acknowledging its own tendencies to veer away from excellence. From out of a darkened screen, ambient ringing tones gradually fanfare an image of a film projector experiencing trouble with clean flow and sharp focus. The clumsiness culminates in a fireball, with film stock gone for good. Persevering discloses more grief—an intense white light—and then, for a microsecond, a vagina-like composition. Rattling from friction in the apparatus gives way to a howling noise level. At last we see something unequivocal, a black panel with a large Z inscribed. That is followed by the count-down from 10 to zero, and squealing noise. An erect penis comes and goes in a flash. Then a trumpet blast and a figure resembling a fetus. From out of this struggle we find a potency of not merely physical birth, but the whole gamut of a creative possibility. There is a falling back to another projector in flames, this time describing a total eclipse of the sun in the form of a film reel. Another trumpet charge, and then we’re confronted with an upside-down children’s literature drawing of a little girl in a body of water just below her knees, as Karin, the psychiatric patient (erroneously diagnosed), first came into view in Through a Glass Darkly (1961). The inversion also suggests a spacewalk. After a brief glitch, there is the little girl again, now moving her arms and hands. Woodwind orchestration joins this action for a second or two. More malfunction, and—what do you know!—a perfectly rendered scene of a child’s moving its hands in a naturally graceful way. The hard-won, translated word, “hand,” in The Silence, peeks in. At this point, too, the boy from The Silence returns (not puttering around a hotel or a train, but fired into the extraterrestrial force of the overture, lying upon a stone table, seemingly at a morgue, or some other precinct of arrested vitality). His visit is brief, in accordance with all the other apparitions. Near a bedstead a figure in a skeleton jumpsuit pops out of a coffin and plays Punch and Judy with a black monster, reminding us of Johan’s bitter entertainment to is aunt, in light of recently seeing his mother making love to one of the hotel staff. The tarantula jiggling along next, upon a sunlight void, puts into the spree Karin, the protagonist of Through a Glass Darkly, who loses her spunk and mistakes a helicopter (arriving to carry her back to a mental hospital) for a giant spider being God Himself. Maintaining the distemper, we see a pudgy fist squeezing a swatch of hair, within which being now a writhing spider. The hand goes on to gouge an eye and involve in a disembowelment. Which brings us to a spike being driven into a hand and affixed to a slab of wood. The tortured hand flexes its fingers the way the legs of a tortured spider would move. On to a stone wall, tree trunks (likewise inert) in the snow, iron spikes along a stairway, a huge mound of ice, old faces (perhaps dead). Here we discover that the boy is alive, and, after unsuccessfully resuming his sleep in the morgue, stages a spate of caressing the massive face of a beautiful woman, probably his mother, unapproachable on the other side of a transparent wall. Perhaps she is a goddess, for better or worse. Her fading in this melancholy downpour ushers in sights of that advantage far from the heart of the frisson on tap. A Buddhist monk, torching himself in the Vietnamese miasma, brings its verve into a quick extinguishment. Quick-cuts of the cast, having been pushed by this rampage to march to a different drummer, subside as rear-ending a second or two of the errancy of the Keystone Cops—hoping for advantage but never (luckily) getting there.

Thence the ensuing drama becomes punctuated by after-shocks of that lead-off blast. We can cite many such deep-space incidents in the wake of Elisabet’s being transferred from the hospital to her psychiatrist’s beach house. But the most striking delivery for this matter going forward derives from the thinly masked contempt and hatred emanating from that seemingly generous practitioner mooting the change of venue. (This stage comprises one of those theatrical set-pieces so incisive to the exploration of Bergman’s rare and difficult undertaking. This is filmmaking which invites the visceral forces of speech to complement its optical firepower.) Garbed in a white lab coat as proof for her lucidity beyond compare, the certified Olympian lays down the law, as far as she can see it. “Elisabet, I don’t think there’s any point in your staying any longer in the hospital. It’s just hurting you to be here. Since you don’t want to go home, I suggest you and Sister Alma [the patient’s one-on-one hospital nurse] move out to my summer place by the sea. [Elisabet peeling an apple and looking uncomfortable in face of a new and more complicated surround. The no-nonsense decision-maker, from her advantage-point in the heights of knowledge, taking a certain satisfaction in beholding the outcome of fuzzy, pretentious thinking.] You think I don’t understand… The hopeless dream of being. Not seeing appearances, but the real. Conscious and awake at every moment. At the same time, a chasm. The feeling of vertigo and constant hunger. To be unmasked once and for all. [Elisabet, in close-up, is seen to be impassive about that philosophical sound-bite.] To be seen through, cut down, perhaps even annihilated. Every tone of voice a lie, every gesture a falsehood, every smile a grimace.

[The patient gives the doctor a quiet glare for her impudence.] Commit suicide? No, too nasty. [She lights a cigarette. The Silence’s intellectual , Ester, was a chain-smoker.] One doesn’t do things like that. But you can refuse to move or talk. Then, at least, you’re not lying. Then you needn’t play any roles—so you might think! But reality plays nasty tricks on you. [A sneer passes over the ‘care-giver’s’ face. Elisabet considers her options.] Your hiding place isn’t watertight enough. Life oozes in from all sides. [Don’t imagine for a second that our protagonist doesn’t know about that which oozes from all sides. The cop by another name gets into her better’s face.] No one asks whether it’s genuine or not, whether you’re lying or telling the truth. Questions like that only matter in the theatre, and hardly even there. I understand you Elisabet. I understand your 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 it’s played out. Until it’s no longer interesting. Then you can drop it, just as you eventually drop all your other roles…”

First , with the prelude, there was a glimpse of a relentless test of the kinetic world at large. Now, we’ve taken on the breathtaking presumptuousness of history, delivering an essentially deadly storm. Persona brings us along to Elisabet’s showtime in the no-nonsense of making some headway, which is to say, an appointment with love—or, if you will, creativity. Perhaps, in enduring with dignity that stuffed-shirt, she had just had her crowning moment. Perhaps there will be an even more effective spike at the beach and its largesse. But headway here can only be slight, a slightness which might turn out to be just enough. Having become fed up with a triumphant cosmopolitan career—her moment of truth coming by way of silencing a performance of a Sophocles Electra (a world-wide event in spades, on the order of a handbook for murderous advantage); and in the spirit of those collapsing projectors—there is something remarkable about her not merely tolerating but actually studying her guide-dog Catholic nurse.

Alma had introduced herself to the patient as from a farming family and following in the footsteps of her no-doubt-devout mother’s medical care work. None of those priorities would interest her at this point; but the new nurse’s body language of engaging volatility, would. The early gambits may have been a bit of a disaster—her tuning into a radio play that was a soap opera, and then asking, “What are you laughing about? Is the actress [in the show] so funny?”; insisting, “I enjoy films and the theatre…I have tremendous enthusiasm for artists [something her sterile boss would never arrive at, but;] I think art is an important part of life, especially for those struggling, for one reason or other… But I’m skating on thin ice”—but, as portrayed by actress, Bibi Andersson, a hearty, bucolic figure, resembling in many ways the portrayal of Anna, by actress, Gunnel Lindblom, in The Silence, Alma would be a breath of fresh air to an Elisabet (portrayed by actress, Liv Ullman, very fine in the form of an acrobatic gambler who unfortunately hates juggling games). After finding the wrong place on the radio dial, her second choice snags a Bach string composition, which transfixes Elisabet on her bed, seen in profile, and she places a patrician hand over her face. The progressions of the music help her somewhat reinstate that portal of play beyond the advantage driving her so far from others.

While, later that night, sleepless Elisabet stumbles upon the burning monk on TV and Bach becomes a casualty, Alma stays up a bit, applying moisturizer to the skin of her throat and applying attention to the sagging status of her imminent marriage. She muses, “You can go along doing anything you please… we’ll have a couple of kids whom I’ll raise… I don’t even have to think about it…” She declares that her life is sound, and promptly contradicts a clear sailing. Both, at different levels, feel the same horror. And yet Alma can ask herself in the darkness of her bed, “I wonder what’s really wrong with her…” Next morning, the slightly enigmatic working girl reads aloud to the full-scale enigma a letter from the actress’s husband not undergoing clear sailing. There is a resemblance in that correspondence to that unsatisfactory soap opera. “Was there some terrible misunderstanding between us? You taught me what it means to be married… You’ve taught me that we must see each other as two anxious children, full of goodwill and the best intentions… governed by forces we can only partially control…” [Verbose Ester, in The Silence, also concludes that those damn “forces” preclude joy. Alma shows her patient the photo, included, of her young boy. Elisabet tears it up].

On to the beach, where badass runs wild; but not wild enough. This second phase of the saga has been provided with copious edgy optical features, in order to antidote the vale of conflict staged by the skeptical women, which veers toward everyday distancing. What must not flag here for us is their singular (but varyingly intense) sense of being castaways on a shore astronomically remote from the priorities of the mainstream. In that light, there is Bergman’s ironic voice-over at the outset of the little trip as if we were about nineteenth-century novelistic couching of a bourgeois holiday. (In The Silence, a figure in the mold of Jacques Tati’s Mr. Hulot, similarly warns us not to expect an excursion bolted down to respectability.) “Thus, at the end of summer, Mrs. Vogler and Sister Alma moved out to the doctor’s summer place…” Also in the vein of (the faux) melodrama to come is the first glimpse of the two ladies at the open expanse. There is a healthy forest being confronted by a brick wall. Organic motion and inert matter—deliberately too obvious, in the service of introducing a devastation not for belles-lettres. “Apathy gave way to walks.” Also in the mode of parody, there was their carefree humming in the sun as they attended to identifying on a table the mushrooms they had enjoyably picked. More playful design-crimes occur in their chic straw sun hats, Elisabet in ethereal white, Alma in more pragmatic black. From out of this comedic cloud of goodwill, the patient takes Alma’s hand, being a contrast of rough skin when placed together with Elisabet’s smoothness and elegantly long fingers. The Sister becomes flustered and trots out the folk superstition, “Don’t you know it’s bad luck to compare hands?” Another presage having to do with a phenomenon that won’t be fun. (The translated term, “hand,” from The Silence, resurfacing here, with intent to imply that this more recent interplay will be drenched in impasse; but, in view of our protagonists here being far more compatible than that preceding duo, we are also cued to notice the positive difference.)

However, with Alma’s choice of recreational literature shifting from delicate botany to broadside, a little rift becoming a landslide kicks in, now dispensing with old-time graces. “Elisabet, may I read you something from my book [as if the previous sinkhole were not warning enough]. Or am I disturbing you?” [disturbance soon becoming the norm]. The silent one, beginning to make some tiny headway with her silence, perhaps rather prematurely testing the resilience in sight, signals that such a disturbance would not rain on her parade; and the rains come apace. “All the anxiety we carry with us, all our thwarted dreams, the implacable cruelty, our fear of extinction, the painful insight into our earthly condition, have crystallized our hope for another-worldly salvation. The tremendous cry of our faith and doubt [Elisabet disclosing being disturbed by the same off-the-cuff slovenliness she saw in the doctor, which constitutes a wrecking ball against her very different forum]. Against this darkness and silence.” [The frames of Alma’s reading glasses cast an irregular halo on her temple. This touch speaks to a far more recent regime than the logic of the majority. Accordingly, Alma’s book’s run of reasoning misses that shading.] “… the most terrifying proof of our abandonment….” Suddenly a bull in a china shop, the Sister marches on by asking, “Do you think that’s true?” This corrosion of the two protagonists could be a distant match for the burning suicide. Perhaps half asleep in the warm sun, and confused by the polemic so foreign to her, the presence attempting to preside, over a paradoxical depth, thoughtlessly nods yes, as to an agency of primal efficacy being a pipe dream. This allows the weaker (shot-in-the-dark logician) to appear to be the stronger. “I don’t believe that!”

The certainly familiar and typical aggressiveness of the doctor would have appeared to Elisabet as a virulent form of plague which the medical-science constituency would be among the last to notice. (Karin’s rare sensibility being subverted by her medic-husband, in Through a Glass Darkly, comprises a preceding instance of the syndrome of overweening estimation of technicity which our main protagonist has got herself caught up in.) Having been game to take a flyer on a segment of the population she seldom, if ever, encounters, this didactic concern would flood her investigation like a mutant of the same disease she already knows and hates. Alma, thinking her stand in the sun to be somehow definitive, that evening, over lots of wine, recites a favorite tale where she is the leading lady of a moment of vision, by dint of an orgy a few years before. With Elisabet installed on her bed in a neoclassical gown, like what perhaps an oracle might wear, an oracle wisely refusing to say anything, the Sister recounts a day, at another beach, when her fiancé had left for the afternoon and she and another woman attracted two young men for the successful performance of repeated and varied coitus. Alma’s chronicling this presumed breakthrough to a New World is both carefully honed and self-congratulatory; and it arouses in the oracle a strong suspicion that she had overestimated the verve of her partner. The latter’s preamble, “I should change [clothes] but I’m too lazy,” finds in the actress her cue for a silent and complicated and embarrassing campaign. (Alma’s verbosity here does, however, display a fascinating blend of crudity and will to cogent power. That Elisabet fails to discern and act upon this phenomenon in good faith brings a newly riveting dramatic outcome to this film project’s problematic brilliance. Alma prefaces her blockbuster by playing homage to previous generations of nurses when working in that field was like taking a vow of poverty. “Imagine, believing so strongly in something, you dedicate your entire life to it! I like that! Helping others… Don’t you agree?’ (Elisabet, who had been trying to conjure some heights of her own by rhythmically moving her hands, musters a sad smile.) “It feels so good to talk! I’ve never felt like this in my life!” [The big name’s tentativeness acting upon the not-so-selfless nurse as a jolt for her gusto.] At which she tells about an abortion she and the fiancé proceeded with. “We were both relieved. We didn’t want children. Not then, anyway. [she cries.] It doesn’t make any sense… Nothing fits together!” Eventually getting to the highlight of her wanderings, she rattles off golden moments like, “Suddenly I turned over and said, ‘Aren’t you coming over to me, too?’ And Katerina said, ‘Go to her now.’ He pulled out of her and fell on top of me, completely hard. He grabbed my breasts. It hurt so bad! I was ready somehow and came almost at once. Can you believe it? I felt it like never before in my life! [Elisabet, in close-up, smokes a cigarette, her eyes showing she is millions of miles from her.] … It’s never been as good, before or since…”

Elisabet’s incubation would not have found reflective value in her nurse’s heart-to-heart gushing, “Katerina unbuttoned his pants and started to play with him. And when he came, she took him in the mouth. He bent down and kissed her back…” But that leaves the question of why she subsequently writes a letter to the doctor in a vein of restrained ridiculing of Alma’s naïve patter. Would we find the clue in the same current of unfortunately rushing to a stand against the possibility of a sentient cosmos? Had she, once again struck by a register seemingly a dead-end, jumped, this time, to seek relief by rubbing the supercilious host’s nose in the medium she regards to be paramount, a towering sphere of efficacy? (Such dramatic dynamics not only strain the bounds of filmmaking but almost overexpose the range of theatre. Does Bergman, here, in the current of upping the ante about the “impossible trick,” introduce novelistic factors? We’re headed for a terrain which does deliver to the film viewer its coherent depths. But structural factors, as we are just in the midst of, become confusing—unless read like a novel. Consequently, a supposition that the film is a paradoxical and endless and wonderful puzzle has come about, to the detriment of the manageable heart of the action.)

Disappointed and distracted Elisabet fails to seal the envelope of the poison pen letter; Alma, driving it to the post office, notices that and—being a Scandinavian hurtin’ gal—reads it, and then hurts some more. The letter includes, as the staffer reads it, “My battered soul is recovering… Alma cares for me in the most touching way… Perhaps she’s even smitten in a charming, ridiculous way… Anyway it’s fun watching her… She complains that her sense of life fails to accord with her actions… an orgy with a strange boy, and a subsequent abortion …” Right from the reading at a side road, however, this rupture—with Alma raving at length—is held in forms of optical beauty, to question the seemingly obdurate death spiral. Shaken by the treachery, she leaves the car and comes to the edge of a lake, the calm surface of which creating a mirror-image amidst the primeval pine forest. That inducement to disinterestedness tellingly, with its duality , of an exigency of juggling amidst high volatility.

It is that beckoning topspin of the battle to come which maintains the singularity of this saga in face of what could readily collapse to a melodramatic screed of resentment. After childishly occasioning a shard of glass by which the traitor may be injured, there is an explosion of physical violence including Alma’s coming close to pouring a boiling pot of water over the now-hated radical. This is accompanied by a fusillade of moralizing by the chatterbox. And that topspin does its best to stitch together the veritable think tank on the brink of bankruptcy. “You used me! For what, I don’t know. Now that you don’t need me anymore, you toss me aside! Yes, I know perfectly well how phony that sounds!” [She wouldn’t be in the loop if she couldn’t feel embarrassed by this level of speech. The orator fails to recognize that Elisabet is weighted down with her failure in bidding for a new nobility.] “You hurt me badly… You got me to talk, to tell you things I’ve never told anyone. Great study material, eh?” She tries to take the high ground by asking, “What kind of a person are you, anyway?” When she settles down a bit and takes the coffee Elisabet offers, Alma capitalizes on the crime to whitewash the exposed laxity. “Is it really so important not to lie, to tell the truth? Can a person really live without babbling away, without lying and making up excuses and avoiding things? [The accused turns her back on the prosecutor.] Isn’t it better to just let yourself be silly and sloppy and dishonest? You don’t understand what I’m saying. There’s no reaching someone like you. You act sane and the worst thing is, everyone believes you. Except me, because I know how rotten you are.” At this, Elisabet strides out of the house. Alma says, “God, what am I doing?” And she rushes along a shore neither sloppy nor dishonest, apologizing over and over to her would-be partner. The projector self-destructs, again, at this melt-down of creative endeavor. The seascape exerts a balance against an interplay of ardent but inept representatives of the serene and the industrious. “I don’t know what got into me! I’m here to help you!”

Any serious prospect of cogent illumination for this team seems to have vanished. But the remainder of this odd couple’s gig does painfully pull out of the hat the contours of a real deal. With stagecraft bona fides, Bergman lulls us into thinking that quite incisive Elisabet is put upon by a totally common Alma. The film’s payoff, however, is much more about what a pedestrian figure like Alma can truly “help” an acrobat like Elisabet. “You won’t forgive me because you’re too proud,” is one of the more intriguing gambits in Alma’s grab-bag. “You won’t stoop to my level because you don’t have to…” But in fact, does she not have to do a ton of “stooping,” in the course of an essential “juggling”? The latter moments of the race along the shore—with Alma stooping and Elisabet leaving her in a jetstream which nature provides for the sake of distancing what appears to be a waste of time—in fact opens upon a rich array of unexpected sources. That the starring figure does indeed feel a pull to stoop, is revealed during Alma’s giving up the chase and sitting amongst large boulders feeling lost. Elisabet has returned to the house, but her attention is on those rocks. She paces about the living room and goes out to a patio continuing along a table of rock jutting out toward the sea. Filmed at mid-distance and from below, she creates a grand frisson, right up her alley; but her intensity is devoted to having left Alma an item of road kill. In close-up, she looks into the setting sun, toward her partner’s whereabouts. Shielding her eyes from the glare with her hand, a black shadow of her fingers presses into her anxiety in once again having failed. But that temporary shadow has put into play that rest-of-her which she lives for, that uncanniness, now also about canniness, the mundane. Complementing her intuition that Alma cannot be easily brushed off, she opens a book with a photo inserted as a book mark, a photo of Nazi troopers rounding up Jews, many of them being terrified children. This alert as to vicious simplism constitutes a subterranean, ongoing theme whereby Bergman lingers upon the poison from lacking a dialectical “juggle” between poetry and prose. (In Through a Glass Darkly, the protagonist’s husband, a scientific zealot with a Master Race aggressiveness, fabricates his wife’s diagnosis of schizophrenia. In The Virgin Spring, a trio led by a man playing a Jew’s harp, rapes and murders a young girl—a bold focus upon maniacal advantage. Persona intensifies this horror, in its comprehensive investigation of kinetic suppleness.)

That night, Alma having returned on her own, wakes with the same frenzy seen by Ester, the voice of increasingly dubious reason, in The Silence (shot upside-down and creating a blur that doesn’t spell magic). She listens to a portable radio, pressing, “We don’t speak… we don’t listen… we can’t understand…” She comes to Elisabet’s bed, touches her throat and whispers, “When you sleep, your face goes slack…” Hearing sounds out their window, she checks, and encounters Mr. Vogler, blind and on the same sentimental page as the nurse. Elisabet had in fact not been asleep, and she accompanies the soulmates (the husband so estranged that he can’t detect the absence of his wife). (Surrealistically in the footsteps of Belles former beau intruding upon the Bêtes’ palace.) “The doctor explained everything [sort of like the way Dr. Martin had it all figured out for his wife, Karin, in Through a Glass Darkly]. You build a community. It gives you security… ” The troubled petitioner disregards Alma’s denying that she’s his wife. And soon the “passionate, compassionate” helper plays along with the romance. Elisabet places Alma’s hand upon him. She rushes to him and declares, “No, don’t worry, my love! We have each other! We have faith in each other! We know each other’s thoughts!” He declares, “I don’t know what to do with my tenderness!” They rush to bed; and after that Alma can no longer play the part, and she becomes frantic. “Give me a sedative!” Her sign-off as part-Elisabet runs, “I’m cold and rotten and indifferent. It’s all just a sham and lies!” (The separated, peculiar lover places her hands on a table as if producing a shattering chord to close this mishap which proves to have staying power.)

The denouement is characteristically oblique. Sedative or not, the versatile careerist confronts her difficult caseload in the form of delivering a professional document to contribute to a hopefully bright future for the patient on the basis of a display of hard-won inference. That the analysis is lubriciously vicious would be only par for the course. “It happened at a party one night, didn’t it? Someone in the group said to you, ‘Elisabet, you have practically everything as a woman and an artist, but you lack motherliness’ [the woman and artist glares at her biographer] … You grew more and more worried, so you let your husband get you pregnant. When you knew it was definite you became afraid—afraid of responsibility, of being tied down, of leaving the theatre behind, afraid of pain, afraid of dying, afraid of your body that was swelling up. But you played the part the whole time. Then there were several attempts to abort. But they failed…” (We see Elisabet seated at the table, with Alma’s back in the shadowy foreground. Here, too, there is another murderous gaze as the final seconds of their relationship ends.)”You wanted a dead baby… [Here the patient closes her eyes and looks down. But does the moment brim with guilt or the gulf on incomprehension she faces?] A difficult delivery… You were in agony for days.” More needling from the care-giver ensues, especially about the child being so intent toward her. “He looks at you , and he’s so soft…”

What remains, a close study will reveal, is reverie by each of them in the wake of that “agony.” (The exception is a perfunctory passage of Elisabet packing; and Alma dragging in the patio furniture, departing with her suitcase and boarding a bus.) First, there is Elisabet beholding Alma as she hopes, as the doctor hoped, to stage a road kill, with her “report.” After reliving that attack, it is for her the matter of fruitful interplay that becomes set in relief. The supposed hermit conjures a successful heart-to-heart with Alma, their heads lovingly close and their faces sharing one figure. The title, Persona, is singular, in accordance with the raging self-assertion which slashes the field. But that does not take into account the myriad transcending moments, which touch upon and fuel a comprehensive sensibility (a Persona), whereby the acrobatic enactment of moving (including being still and silent) may reach an elusive primordiality itself, and where juggling of presences means both one and many. On the heels of this supernal daring, we get a slice of something much smaller. The Sister is back at that inquisitional bench, making Elisabet squirm, and she prefaces her daydream by way of public opinion. “I’m not like you. I don’t feel the same way you do. I’m Sister Alma. I’m only here to help you. I’d really like to have… I love… I haven’t…” [Now the bench has migrated back to the hospital.] She sees herself marching into that slacker’s retreat, and, with fanatically angry tone, she comes close to the Nazis in that photo, getting down to a quick fix. She stares down the softie, who in fact would find the exercise pointless. “I’ll never be like you. I change all the time. You can do what you want. You won’t get to me.” Alma pounds her fists on the table. “I take, yes… What’s it called? No! No! No! Us, we, me, I… Many words and the disgust…” [Elisabet closes her eyes. Her lips tremble in silhouette, not without eerie beauty, not without expansiveness… She scratches with her patrician fingernails the skin of one of her wrists. Alma sucks the blood. The nurse/ jailer repeatedly slaps Elisabet’s face. A cut shows Alma’s second take. She enters the hospital room, brings Elisabet to a seated position and holds her, head-to-head [making both of them ardent, however inconsistent, acrobats and jugglers. “Repeat after me,” Alma orders: “Nothing.” Elisabet says, “Nothing,” so wrong for her. “That’s it! That’s good! That’s how it should be,” the technician in her celebrates. Elisabet lies down. The heads are together. Elisabet is seen gently caressing her nurse by sliding her neck behind Alma’s neck.

As Alma, in a prim little hat, and her spiffy nurse’s uniform boards the bus by the wide-open sea, the production crew on a dolly puts in a little visit to make sure we see them in the same , often agonizing, boat or bus. The boy and the beauty reemerge. Homecomings abound. Has the trip been broadening?

#ingmar bergman

0 notes