yes..finally watched the supposedly very famous PERSONA and yes..i can hardly comprehend.. it is the most complex film i've ever came across( thx to biao)..i have NEVER felt so defeated(haha~~~;P) wang jia wei's shows seem like child's play~~~!...but the the story it tells is really quite simple. ..It's just abt this actress Elizabeth Volger has suddenly stopped speaking perhaps to cease all communication with the external world(as what the docter says). She is taken then to a hospital.. where a nurse Alma is called upon to look after her. ..After some time...the doctor feels the hospital is of little use to her and send them to her seaside home.. with nurse Alma of course..Elisabeth still remains silent....the relationship between the women seems to develop pretty fine...until one day, with too much alcohol...Alma starts to reveal her past in front of Elisabeth...it's like..she's becoming the "patient" ...spilling out the intimate details of her life while Elisabeth becomes in a sense the shrink...silently absorbing EVERYTHING.. and a some sort of "transference" takes place...it's like..after Alma discovers that Elizabeth is actually observing her and tells Others abt her past...tt's when the film became hard to follow...it's like...Alma beomes more and more insane..esp when her frustrations and cries at Elizabeth are returned with silence and SILENCE only...wah~~ i ll be equally insane if i found someone betraying me and tt person refused to answer/retort ANY of my accusations or confrontations....you know..wu2 yan2 shi4 zui4 gao1 de qing1 mie4( hong lou bi3 ji4 has thsi saying~~ i RMB!!=D)...then it got me thinking during my bus ride home...when the HORROR of me not getting any PT of the film when it just ended..cooled down and slowly drained away...maybe..it's trying to tell us how we interpret others,..how others interpret us..and the impact that these interpretations have upon both us and them...ALL the peaceful and frenly image that the director portrayed might just be from ALMA's point of view... we are looking at Elisabeth from Alma's perspective...and we interpretate the same way as SHE does...but ever since Elisabeth's letter that kind of betrayed Alma become know... the Elisabeth we "knew" is now suddenly open to different interpretations...and Alma becomes increasingly insane...until the pt tt she might be fantasising or imagining things...and there are certain parts where the images of the 2 women start to overlap...Alma talking as if she's Elizabeth...hmmm...and there are weird images popping out...and i was lost...i couldnt differentiate real vs imaginary anymore...or rather...who is WHO?!at this pt in time...i'm starting to wonder...after the drunk Alma reveals herself in front of Elizabeth... Elizabeth DID mutter something like " dont sleep on the table..go and lay down in your bed.." and when Alma questions Elizabeth abt it the next day..Elizabeth shaking her head( meaning she DIN break her SILENCE)..i was wondering y she LIED..but come to think of it..is it really tt Elizabeth said it or it's just another part of Alma's hallucination? AM I TOO...just choose to believe in WAT i perceive...i tink tt shd be the pt of the film..wat we know about each other rests largely upon what we ourselves project upon them....y Elizabeth laughs at everyone before she falls silent...and y she laughs at Alma when Alma is confronting her...i dono..the only sensible interpretation for me is that she's mocking at humans...how naive we are at believing in wateva we project on others....just how naive we are...." who actually IS the patient" kept ringing in my mind while i was watching....

but still...the beginning and the end weird collage of imagines...seem to have NO APPARENT link at all.....the image of a boy lying on the bed with another old lady/man lying on another bed with his/her hand stretchs out dripping blood( i think), making the "tick..tick..."background sound as the blood dripped into a pail of MORE BLOOD?! dont seem to make sense to me at all.... and then the boy gets up..gets down the bed and started to feel SOMETHING ( nothing..just open air.. i was wondering he might be trapped in this room bounded by tranparent glass panels...) and then...some blurred imagine(a very big one) at the "panel" he is feeling appeared..and slowly beomes clearer.....and it's an image of the face of a woman.............................HUH?!?!?!?!? i was like....wat's going on?!*scratch head* totally lost....hahaha.... i think having to follow the eng subtitles played a part for distracting me..hahahah..*trying to blame it on others* =P...

anyway...Elizabeth only said the word "nothing" towards the end of the film...tts the ONLY thing she said in the whole show...not counting the line she SEEMINLY said to Alma when ALma was drunk....rocks hor~~~-_-hahaha....anyway...high ratings for swedish films!=)