#302: Dual Duels Pt. 1 — Persona

The Next Picture Show

In familiar Edgar Wright fashion, the director’s new LAST NIGHT IN SOHO is brimming with cinematic allusion, but that self-reflexivity combined with a focus on a pair of similar-looking women whose identities begin to merge in uncanny ways brought us immediately to one of film’s most mysterious and scrutinized movies: Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA. Broadly concerned with two women’s power struggle and eventual convergence, Bergman’s film is open to countless, sometimes overlapping interpretations, many of them concerning the nature of cinema itself, leading to its reputation as the “Mount Everest of cinematic analysis.” We consider that reputation, and what about the film invites it, in part one of this double double-feature. Plus, we respond to a multi-part question about DUNE that we only mostly disagree with.

Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about PERSONA, LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to [e-mail], or leaving a short voicemail at [phone].

Outro music: “Personality Crisis” by New York Dolls

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