"Masquerade" - a frothy ephemeral dream

Ilene 2022-04-20 09:01:41

The film is puzzling and not easy to understand, just like poetry. This is what the director did on purpose. There are so many movies that people miss because of their incomprehension.

The audience has the right to reconstruct the story in the movie, everyone's understanding of the movie can be very different, they can all break and reorganize the plot in the movie to make it a movie completely their own . This is the interesting point of this film.

I feel like the story goes something like this: The actress lost her voice for some reason, so a young nurse took care of her.

The boy at the beginning of the film should be the son of the actress. Most of the film is the heroine's dream (or fantasy), which can be seen from the beginning and end of the film. The actors and the nurses have only a short communication in reality, that is, when the nurses meet the actress for the first time, the stories that happened in the doctor's villa are all the actress's dreams.

There are plenty of hints in the film that the two are actually the same person at all. The actress gave a part of her experience to the nurse. In other words, the talk about the nurse is actually the actress's own experience at all.

In that dream, an interesting story happened between the actress and the nurse: the two talked about everything from the beginning, and finally showed hostility and even hatred. What matters is the story the nurse tells - the actress's story

The actress once had sex with a boy on the beach, and the experience left her so confused that she didn't know what to make of the affair. She used to hate her children for some reason, but she often felt very guilty, and this became a knot in her heart.

The whole film is strongly influenced by surrealism, and the whole story is a dream. In this story, we are able to delve into the inner world of the actress, and learn how she thinks about things, like a stream of consciousness novel.

The slow pacing, black and white photography, simple characters, and simple plot give this film a distinct style, and it's great to have such a unique style of film.

View more about Persona reviews

Extended Reading

Persona quotes

  • Sister Alma: Elisabet? Can I read you something from my book? Or am I disturbing you? It says here:"All the anxiety we bear with us, all our thwarted dreams, the incomprehensible cruelty, our fear of extinction, the painful insight into our earthly condition, have slowly eroded our hope of an other-wordly salvation. The howl of our faith and doubt against the darkness and silence, is one of the most awful proofs of our abandonment and our terrified, unuttered knowledge." Do you think it's like that?

  • Sister Alma: Karl-Henrik and I rented a cottage by the sea once. It was June, and we were all alone. One day, when Karl-Henrik had gone into town, I went to the beach on my own. It was a warm and lovely day. There was another girl there. She'd paddled over from another island because our beach was sunnier and more secluded. We lay there, sunbathing beside one another, complete naked, dozing now and then, putting suntan lotion on. We had those cheap straw hats on, you know? I had a blue ribbon around mine. I lay there peeping out from under my hat at the landscape and the sea and the sun. It was kind of funny. Suddenly I saw two figures leaping about on the rock above us. They would hide and then peek out. "There's a couple of boys looking at us," I told the girl. Her name was Katarina. "Let them look," she said, and turned over on her back. It was a strange feeling. I wanted to jump up and put my robe on but I just lay there on my stomach with my bottom in the air, not at all embarrassed, completely calm. Katarina lay there next to me the whole time, with her breasts and thick thighs. She just lay there sort of giggling to herself. I noticed that the boys had come closer. They just stood there looking at us. I noticed they were terribly young. Then one of them - the more daring of the two - came up and squatted down next to Katarina. He pretended to be busy picking at his toes. I felt so strange. Suddenly I heard Katarina say, "Hey, why don't you come over here?" She took him by the hand and helped him off with his jeans and shirt. Then suddenly he was on top of her. She guided him in with her hands on his behind. The other boy just sat on the slope and watched. I heard Katarina whisper in the boy's ear and laugh. His face was right next to mine. It was red and swollen. Suddenly I turned over and said, "Aren't you coming over to me too?" And Katarina said, "Go to her now." He pulled out of her and fell on top of me, completely hard. He grabbed my breast. It hurt so bad. I was ready somehow and came almost at once. Can you believe it? I was about to say, "Careful you don't get me pregnant" when he suddenly came. I felt it like never before in my life, the way he sprayed his seed into me. He gripped my shoulders and arched backward. I came over and over. Katarina lay on her side and watched and held him from behind. After he came, she took him in her arms and used his hand to make herself come. When she came, she screamed like a banshee. Then all three of us started laughing. We called to the other boy, who was sitting on the slope. His name was Peter. He came down, looking all confused and shivering despite the sunshine. Katarina unbuttoned his pants and started to play with him. And when he came, she took him in her mouth. He bent down and kissed her back. She turned around, took his head in both hands, and gave him her breast. The other boy got so excited that he and I started all over again. It was just as good as before. Then we went for a swim and parted ways. When I got home, Karl-Henrik was already back from town. We ate dinner and drank some red wine he'd brought. Then we had sex. It's never been as good, before or since. Can you understand that?