Persona

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but hey, everything's been placid. I just watched Persona by Ingmar Bergman. I watched it in college and retained almost nothing from it. This time it made more of an impression: it speaks to my own sense of isolation, lack of volition, and impending death in a way that few films would want to approach. I'm trying to reconstruct the cognitive operating system I must have been using in college, but I'm glad I'm not so obtuse now. It reminds me of all the (mostly young) anime fans I've met who can't process shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain, shows which try to harness popular anime to the concerns and tactics of art film, with mixed but intriguing results. I wonder how many of those young fans will revisit the shows with fresh understanding, later in their lives?