Episode 223: The Hopeless Dream of Being (Bergman's "Persona")

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist Dave Pizarro having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] I've been accused of being a lot of things in articulate ain't one of them. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave, I know the answer to this question already but I want to get you on the public record about this.

[00:01:19] So what do you think of Ted Lasso Season 2? Oh my god, I just finished the last episode. I've never seen a show go from so good to so like I didn't even know there was that distance to travel. Like I didn't know conceptually that such a distance existed.

[00:01:38] In quality. In quality. I thought Season 1 was just touching, heartwarming everything we needed in the misery that was you know the COVID years. And I swear to god it's like the writers all of a sudden were given a second season

[00:01:55] and they didn't believe it and they're like oh shit, hurry up. Let's have the African young soccer player get in a relationship with an old white woman. It's just terrible. It's like the not-to-be-air South Park episode where they're making fun of family guy

[00:02:13] and it's just like these balls. The manatees. Yeah, the manatees exactly. We need two people to fall in love. So what do you got for us manatees? Now it's here's my question about it.

[00:02:26] This is not what we're talking about even for the opening segment but like I found myself thinking maybe Season 1 wasn't that good and because but we were just in quarantine and it was it hit at the right time. We felt like something heartwarming.

[00:02:42] We didn't want something like that was going to challenge us in any way. I don't know if that's true. I haven't gone back and watched. I couldn't get through Season 2. I'm impressed that you were able to get through it and also my family couldn't get through

[00:02:53] me watching it with them either. The last three episodes we just we just sort of hate watched it. Maybe with a little bit of hope but you didn't see the final episode so you don't. I don't know what happens yet. You can tell me. Oh my god man.

[00:03:07] It's just like, you know I think I haven't rewatched the first season but I think it was just tighter. There was a character development. It was the tightly written story.

[00:03:17] It was about this team and this person and I think it would hold up a nice ending to you know like they don't they don't win and it was never about winning and whatever.

[00:03:29] It's also like every edge that was on any character is taken off and then just the lamest like heel turn for you know the meekest character in Season 1. Here's what was extra annoying about it. Like I don't even think it was manatees.

[00:03:43] That's actually the wrong way of describing it. It's more like normally this would be an older guy and a young woman but we're like pushing the envelope pushing the envelope. It's weird because it actually ethically bothered me that it was her boss. Right.

[00:03:59] Like am I not supposed to be bothered that this is like the woman who actually controls his career. Yeah he's 21 also and yeah she's the owner of like a black athlete and she's doing this.

[00:04:12] You know what they're thinking in the writer's room is you wouldn't be saying that if it was the other way around but of course you would be saying. But isn't the point that we should?

[00:04:20] It's just so transparent like even Jen and Eliza and maybe especially Eliza was just annoyed by that. It just seemed like self congratulatory in some way. And then just. Okay so I have to say this because if you're not going to finish it all our listeners

[00:04:35] who haven't invested in watching it and are not going to see it like starting this moment on fast forward like two minutes. What you said about the meekest character turning weirdly sort of like aggressive. Just being a total asshole. Yeah.

[00:04:49] The fucking thing ends with him as essentially a bond villain who gets hired to be the coach on the rival team. Like and he's now his hair was slowly going white and by the last scene in the episode is he's in an all black suit.

[00:05:04] His hair is totally white cursed out Ted Lasso. And so now like it was literally just a buffoonish bond built villain to Ted Lasso. And all of this because in one game this was like the second to last episode

[00:05:16] that I could stomach like Ted Lasso has some sort of breakdown and I know this is about mental health like he has some sort of breakdown and all that this guy does is say park the bus which means play defensively and try

[00:05:30] to counteract like just the simplest possible like soccer strategy that you could have. And then now all of a sudden like the power and the glory goes to his head and you know he's going to be he's going to shit on and spit on people

[00:05:45] just like he was spit on and shit on it's just it was brutal. And you know what? OK, last thing about Ted Lasso the thing that really bugs me is the people who like it are saying but now there's the inevitable backlash against Ted Lasso.

[00:06:00] It's like the opposite of a backlash because it's awful. It's like atrocious and people still are defending it. Like that's literally the opposite of a backlash. What's what's happening to I can't like the nowadays rotten tomato scores

[00:06:15] like critic scores are the most untrustworthy things as long as you have some some like woke shit no matter how poorly written it is. It's like 98 99 and even the wokest of the people I know like have realized this but like yeah fucking like emperor is naked here

[00:06:31] like the audience the audience scores and the the critic scores are just diverging in ways that are if I may say indicative of the political culture. Yes, which will relate to what we're going to be talking about.

[00:06:44] All right, so let's talk about what we are going to talk about. Two things that we both well liked slash loved. The first is Dave Chappelle's new controversial special speaking of the political culture and its interaction with the world of art and entertainment.

[00:07:01] And then in the second segment, we're going to talk about Ingmar Bergman's stone cold masterpiece persona that everybody should see because it's also an hour and 20 minutes or something like that. Yes, but no, but you on purpose didn't ask me what I thought about the movie

[00:07:20] and here you are calling it a masterpiece. And I don't want the audience to get to get any ideas that I am somehow revealing my opinion for a segment to. OK, well, if you don't like persona, we're going to have a problem. I'm like me.

[00:07:33] I'm like me from Ted Lassa. How dare you state my opinion before I say it? Right now, you're going to join two psychologists for beer. Chappelle. Yes. What did what did you think of that? Yeah, that that might be actually something that I I actually

[00:07:56] when you said liked or loved because I so I watched this. This is the latest Chappelle Netflix special called Closer and I watched it twice in the second time. I liked it less, so I don't love it. I don't love it.

[00:08:13] And we could talk about why I don't love it, but I liked it less the second time. And I'm curious about what your initial reactions were. So I only watched it once, but I can see what you're saying.

[00:08:28] Why some of the things that, you know, when you don't know what to expect in the first time through might start to great in the second revealing because I thought it was already kind of on the edge of grating,

[00:08:43] you know, just because he really does try to straightforwardly address his critics, especially about the trans jokes. And I thought it kind of worked pretty well and in an interesting way. It was certainly not. I didn't think it was perfect, but the way he was going about it,

[00:09:01] the way it was constructed. I really enjoyed this special. I also thought it was very funny throughout. Like there were some great jokes as someone who got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is like him in that way. Like I appreciated those jokes.

[00:09:15] I expect you to unreservedly condemn the spaceju jokes. That was one of the best ones. Because there's a callback to it. Yeah, I know. So here's, I think I think I responded more negatively to you. But I think I started in the same place. So it's built up.

[00:09:39] You know, he's gotten a lot of flak foretelling. Anti-trans jokes, but also sexist jokes, I guess. I didn't want to hear more of that. I wanted this to be a new thing. I honestly thought with the last two that came out at the same time,

[00:09:56] I thought that he had left it on a good note there. Like this is how he feels. I didn't think he had to tread on that territory again. And here's what I think upon the second viewing bothered me. That I don't usually see that much of in Chappelle.

[00:10:10] And what I think made this one less funny than the other ones. He struck me as defensive in his telling of jokes in a way that he usually isn't. Yeah. And it made me a little bit sad because I don't think he has to be.

[00:10:25] It became a lot about how people think about what people think about Dave Chappelle. It was a little Naval Gazy and, you know, I can't feel sorry for him that much. Right, you know. Because he's rich and famous. Yeah, like really great at what he does.

[00:10:45] Yeah, I kind of came at that from a different angle. I thought that it really bothered him. So I'm like you. I think we even did a segment on this where I thought the last two episodes, it was pretty funny and I was shocked that

[00:11:03] that there was a lot of negative criticism of it. Like it seemed almost affectionate his joke. That whole LGBTQ bus or whatever, you know. And it struck me as like very surprising that people reacted in the way that they did. But they did react that way.

[00:11:19] And I think Dave Chappelle took it really personally and especially the punching down comments as he says explicitly in the special. It almost felt like, given that this is his last Netflix special of the series that he's done for them, it felt like he had to address it.

[00:11:36] And I kind of appreciated that he was going out of his way to try to do it in as straightforwardly as possible while still being or trying to be funny about it. You know, it's never fun when comedians complain about criticism from like PC or woke quarters.

[00:11:53] Like that's not usually fun, but it seemed like this in particular really bothered him and he felt like he had to talk about it and work through it. Now, like, you know, was it fully successful?

[00:12:06] I know, but I appreciated that the element of, you know, the way this kind of criticism typically comes from people who are white. There was some interesting things that he had to say about that. Yeah, I was talking to Nikki about this and she thought it was

[00:12:27] like a lot meaner than the other ones. And and I get what you said was is right. It got to him. And I never really thought that I would hear it like it got to him.

[00:12:40] Like you could tell it got to him and and other Dave Chappelle would laugh it off or like say what he needed to say, but not. But you also said something about there was heart in his jokes, like in the last ones. His sneer is a little meaner.

[00:12:53] Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, I understand, I think, where he's coming from. So I think that one of the big things that's bothering Dave Chappelle is not just the backlash that he's gotten, but the backlash that he's gotten

[00:13:08] as a reflection of what he sees as a hypocrisy in America, and which he says as much explicitly in this. And what's really bothered him is what he perceives as the LGBTQ movement getting more respect and making more progress than blacks in America. And and this has

[00:13:34] sorry, I shouldn't say blacks, black people in America. The black the space blacks space. That and I think that this is to me, Dave Chappelle has always been somebody who in his heart of hearts is doing the struggle through comedy.

[00:13:53] Like it's the black struggle in America through his comedy. I get the sentiment like I certainly like I think I understand I just think that his targets for expressing this sentiment were not always the people who were deserving of the target. Yeah, the target.

[00:14:13] Yeah, like a lot of communities, the black community is trying to wrestle with, especially, I think, trans issues right now in in ways that are sometimes constructive and sometimes not. And I think what really bugs Chappelle is when these otherwise fairly

[00:14:35] privileged, white, you know, whether they're in the trans community or they're just allies of the trans community, when they go after people, that's that's like, you know, the otherwise like Kevin Hart, like Kevin Hart's doing fine. Sorry that he didn't get to host the Oscars.

[00:14:50] That was bad. I agree. But like I think it's that kind of thing. And especially when it happens to somebody who isn't Kevin Hart, like that really bugs him and that he thinks is kind of common theme in these kinds of debates.

[00:15:03] And you know, when he says like who's punching down really, like I think a lot of the time he thinks it's the the the woke people or the marginalized communities and their allies punching down on the people who are just trying to figure it out.

[00:15:17] And maybe they say some insensitive or offensive things, but like the response to it is out of proportion. Now we're not cultural critics. It strikes me as certainly it happens sometimes. So there's that.

[00:15:29] But then there's also, I think what you said about him being meaner and this special, I think what got to him was that people were saying that about him in previous specials, you know? And he didn't think that was true, you know?

[00:15:44] And that's why he tells the story of the trans person who he allowed to open for him. And like in this show that I would love to see if somebody videotaped it, like he started just interrogating her about being trans and she was answering

[00:16:02] questions. And even though she bombed in her opening set, she was like so funny and trying to talk about it. And it seems like this is his ideal, right? Like this is how he thinks like these kinds of interactions should go

[00:16:14] where people try to understand each other without judging and condemning like right away. And and then, you know, the kind of tragedy of what happens to this to this woman after she gets hounded and dragged on Twitter for supporting Dave Chappelle, she takes her own life.

[00:16:32] And he says, which I think it's important, like he doesn't know why she took her own life. Right. He doesn't say that it was her getting dragged on Twitter that let her to do that. But he says it can't have helped.

[00:16:43] You know, that's another time where he says who's you know, who's punching down here? She could just get viciously attacked like she did, I'm sure, because she's defended Dave Chappelle. That's there's something wrong with that and something poison is about it, I guess. Yeah.

[00:16:59] You know, the very sincere, heartwarming moments in previous specials were fewer and further between this time. And as I think about it, here's one thing that bothers me because it's like I'll defend whatever comedy if it's funny. It doesn't like I don't care.

[00:17:14] I think at times when he would let this get to him, there were a couple of times where he relied on humor that was just sort of stale like making jokes about Adam's apples and or like saying, like, why do women think I hate them?

[00:17:30] Like what kind of bitch would say that? You know, like there's like a buzz of a violent change to it. Like at one point, like he talks about, I guess, the lesbian that came up to him in a bar and he says, I whooped the toxic

[00:17:40] masculinity out of that bit. Right. Which but again, one of these interactions starts with him saying, look, it's it's art. You can interpret it any way you want, although he then goes and completely undercuts that. But yeah.

[00:17:54] But I think, you know, that's intentional, I guess is what I'm saying. Like this edge that is in this special that really wasn't in some of the other specials when it comes to these issues. Like whether I don't know, we like it or not.

[00:18:08] Like I feel like there is an honesty to it. The the one thing that you can never take away from Dave Chappelle, that he crafts sets like nobody else. Exactly. Yeah. Like that guy tells a story.

[00:18:24] Like he is so good at putting together an hour's worth of story that's compelling. Like he refers to himself as the goat. Another thing that I like wasn't funny to me, but like I I personally have them up to, like I said last time,

[00:18:42] Norm MacDonald and Dave Chappelle to me in very different ways are the best in my lifetime to do it. Yeah. And I think that I genuinely have a moral dilemma because I don't blame some people for being feeling betrayed by his jokes this time around.

[00:18:59] I'm not a member of the, you know, the marginalized groups that he was joking about. And I really feel like I can't I can't speak very well to whether or not he crossed a line, but I'm never going to say I don't love Dave Chappelle.

[00:19:16] Like no, it's an important point. Like we're not of the marginalized community, and especially like I think the trans community. I mean, I think he separates them from like even he is sensitive to that that's a different thing right now than being gay or being a woman.

[00:19:34] And especially if you're white in both of those two things because people who are who have completely come to terms with, you know, same sex marriage. But like then there's this trans thing, which just like

[00:19:46] if you're as old as you and I are, like this is a completely new thing. And there's stuff about it that makes that makes sense. And you feel a ton of empathy for people who are who have been,

[00:19:57] you know, treated with contempt, treated as if people don't believe what they're saying, people saying that what they are isn't real. You know, but also like not getting it, you know, if you're a cis person like me just not fully getting even like what the whole thing means.

[00:20:15] But I take it that's his point is that like the way for this bridge to be built is through conversation and not just immediate judgment and attacks. Yeah, there was one point where I thought the worst thing I thought about about what he was saying,

[00:20:34] I think was at one point when he's talking about his trans friend, Daphne and saying that she was in my tribe, the tribe of comedians where it felt like, oh, is what you're saying that we can be cool

[00:20:45] as long as you don't bring any of that pronoun shit into like our conversation? Like, like, no, like I'll treat. We should treat each other as just regular humans. Just don't get all political on me. I think I enter. I could see interpreting it that way.

[00:20:59] But because, you know, the climax of that story is their interaction when he's on stage and she's in the front row and just asking questions and she's answering them. And like, I don't think he's saying don't bring that political shit.

[00:21:14] I think he's saying there is a way to bring the political shit that doesn't make people enemies and make people defensive and make people if they claim not to understand something, make people feel like that they're bad people.

[00:21:29] And and I think he thinks that the trans community is too quick to the kind of judgment, not quick enough to just trying to explain to people things that they don't understand. And I know that that's exhausting as a lot of people say,

[00:21:45] is to try to explain it. My favorite part of that story is when they're laughing during the show and Dave Chappelle says, whatever I love you, but I just don't get it. And Daphne gets mad at him and looks in front of everybody says no.

[00:22:02] Like and the way that Dave Chappelle even relates the story, he relates the anger in her voice. Right. And that that seemed like a genuine moment where where, you know, he he was it was the one time in this maybe not the one time,

[00:22:18] but it was one certain time in the show where I felt like he was. Admitting to change himself, like admitting to see to to being a different person because of his relationship with Daphne. Yeah, you know, and again, I think that's just circles back to

[00:22:34] this really got to him. And I think it didn't just get to him because he thinks it's his critics fault, right? Like, I think it also got to him because he thinks at a conscious and maybe also unconscious level that it's also his fault.

[00:22:48] Yeah, I often find myself wondering what the trans community like the broader trans community things. And I say broader here, meaning not not the people who are in the press a lot or or Twitter a lot because we know they're not that's not a representative

[00:23:04] of even like non trans people. Right. I wonder that too. And and of course, like I'm sure listeners will say in their right, like, why don't you ask why? Why not just ask people, you know, a Twitter poll? Hey, Jesse single, can you retweet this for me?

[00:23:23] I'm curious what the. Last thing I actually want to say about this, I also think we're just of this like different generation. I don't know if this is true in Ithaca, but it's definitely true in Houston. The way they think and talk about this issue is just

[00:23:42] like it's just a sea change. It is such a fact of life and so many of Eliza's friends consider themselves non binary or and at least three or four have come out as trans. It's so matter of fact, it's so much a matter of course that

[00:24:00] it's just another one of these things that it's like, how did this happen so quickly? But it seems like it has and in a really good way, like they don't seem really mad and defensive if, you know, if Jen will throw my wife under the bus,

[00:24:15] ask some kind of offensive or insensitive question. Like it's not like anybody gets really mad at her. It's like it's almost to the point where people have a sense of humor about it, kind of inspiring.

[00:24:26] And it's just like maybe this is just something where like you and I just have to die out in our generation and then everything will be fine. You know, like, you know, I always remember that that when we were younger, there could be a whole episode of Donahue

[00:24:43] that was just about like one kid coming out as gay in his high school. You know, right? And I remember feeling at some point in my adult life, like it was so nice that being gay didn't have to be like the central thing that you know about somebody

[00:25:00] like it could be just sort of an aside and hopefully we'll get there with this stuff too. You know, I think we're already there. It's just not like people are aged. They're already there. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's it's literally like we just have to die.

[00:25:15] Who has to die for anti black racism? Well, I think that's kind of his point. Exactly. That's exactly I think his point. Like somehow every one of these things just makes incredible progress over a short amount of time, except for that one. You know,

[00:25:32] it's not a contest until you look at hundreds of years. Yeah. And I appreciated that about, you know, his about the special. All right. Let's go to the white people's problems. It's such an unfair description of Arizona, but also fair. We'll be right back.

[00:25:58] This episode of Very Bad Wizards is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. Check out betterhelp.com slash VBW. You know, we're very grateful for BetterHelp sponsorship throughout the past year or so. And so let's just take a moment to think about how life has changed in that time

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[00:29:06] Yes, we had a love. She can move. Yes, we had a love. She can move. Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. This is the time of the episode where we like to take a moment and thank all of our listeners for their engagement. That's the official word, engagement.

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[00:33:31] so meaningful to us that you support us and interact with us. Hey, man. All right, well, let's talk about persona, which I still don't know what you think about. You've been kind of ghosting me. That's true. I had a very, very busy day.

[00:33:48] The spoiler is I liked it, so you don't have to be worried. OK, yeah. I've been like texting him about it and I'm just getting no response. Just which is appropriate, actually, for the movie. So I appreciated that.

[00:34:01] At least I sort of met a commentary you were engaging in. I thought of it that way. All right, so I'm going to give a plot summary, but it's a movie that cries that wants to be interpreted and then also resists

[00:34:17] interpretation or at least any kind of confident interpretation. And it's also one where a very accurate plot summary can be given that doesn't at all really tell you what this movie is or feels like or is about. Yes, it has been called the white whale of film criticism

[00:34:35] because of all the different ways that you can interpret it. All right, so let me do a quick plot summary and we can dive in. Persona is essentially the story of you and I in Montana. Was this your attention check?

[00:34:54] I thought I would get more of a reaction. I was literally like I had checked out for a second to like organize my windows and then I caught what you just said, which one of us did the talking? It's funny if you're in Montana with us

[00:35:09] and if you've seen Persona and I guess if you're me. That's the only way it's funny. But I thought it was anyway. The movie starts with a projector being run and then just a crazy montage with like penis at one point, a crucifixion,

[00:35:30] a cartoon, all sorts of other things, like some of which are comic in kind of the silent movie kind of way. Some are really violent and brutal. Just one on top of the other. There doesn't seem to be like a cohesiveness.

[00:35:42] If there's a cohesiveness to it, it's like the feeling of it, which is kind of stress. And you know, you're being kind of whipped around a little bit. And you know, we can talk about it, try to analyze it.

[00:35:55] I guess it resolves on a boy on some sort of cot with a sheet that's too small for him. So it's like he's sleeping on a cot and he has this sheet that's like like a foot too small for him, which is like a lot of this movie.

[00:36:11] It conveys a kind of feeling. And I found that as somebody who has trouble sleeping like the boy is and who has had like a sheet that's not long enough for me, like there's something just stressful about that.

[00:36:23] You know, that's the that's the feeling that you get when you're watching that. Then he tries to he can't sleep. He tries to read for a bit and then he gets up and there's a screen which he touches with his hand

[00:36:33] and then a blurry image of a woman takes shape. And that's like the the prologue and also a very brief epilogue kind of comes back to it. So the movie is framed by this boy. But then it turns into a more conventional story of two just.

[00:36:50] Impossibly beautiful women like just absolutely they're played by Liv Ollman and B.B. Anderson, both of whom give just amazing performances. I think B.B. Anderson as nurse Alma is it's it's like a Mount Rushmore performance. It's one of the greatest performances I've ever seen.

[00:37:10] So the story of an actress named Elizabeth Vogler, Elizabeth Vogler and a nurse named Alma. Elizabeth was on stage performing the play Electra, which is incidentally the story of a girl who kills her mother. Perhaps relevantly, perhaps not.

[00:37:29] So she's performing this play and then all of a sudden she stops speaking and then the next day she stops speaking entirely. And that's why she's in the hospital. She just won't speak. The very Scandinavian doctor who's in charge of her assigns Alma to take care of her

[00:37:48] and eventually has them both go to a cottage on an island so that Elizabeth can Elizabeth can recover. Since Elizabeth doesn't speak, Alma has to do all the talking and she becomes kind of a chatty Cathy. And you know, it's kind of nice at first.

[00:38:04] She has a disarming quality, but you know, soon she starts confessing things really deep things about herself, including a story about an orgy with two boys. I say boys, they seem like they might be literal boys but that gave her the best sex she ever had.

[00:38:24] Soon she feels betrayed by Elizabeth, like that was taking advantage of her vulnerability to study her maybe for a future role. We don't know, but there's a letter that sort of reveals that Elizabeth is studying her. That leads to a horrifying scene

[00:38:40] and there's horror elements to this movie. But just the scene with the broken glass on the cobblestone patio is just really kind of tough to watch. Right. That turns into a fight, some bloodsucking, a possible dreamlike vicarious sex with Elizabeth's husband.

[00:39:00] In the middle of the movie, and this is after the glass scene, the film starts to break down and you get clips from the montage in the beginning. Like it's just like the film just starts to kind of burn up

[00:39:13] literally like the actual film as it's presented to us. Like on a projector. For those who don't know how films used to be shown. Yes, it does kind of make you nostalgic for film, actual film.

[00:39:25] And then it kind of resets again as their relationship resets a little bit. The climax of the movie is Alma telling Elizabeth how she feels about her unwanted son in a speech that is repeated twice. Once with a camera on Elizabeth and once with it on Alma,

[00:39:43] then their faces merge and one of the most famous shots in film history. I'm sure every or almost every listener has seen it, you know, at some point. And then again, it ends with that same kind of framing device.

[00:39:55] The boy touching the screen, the projector this time turning off. And then it's that's the end of the movie. The last thing I want to say about it is from 1966 is when it's released, a lot of the images that we get, you know,

[00:40:09] the Buddhist monk in Vietnam letting himself on fire, as well as the kind of the woman's role starting to get redefined. It has that very like we're on the border of like the fifties and everything's good and good, defeated evil. That's over now.

[00:40:25] And the woman bakes the apple pie. Like that's kind of over now. And now things are in flux. They're transitioning. We're in this space where it doesn't seem like anybody knows, you know, what's going on. Right. OK. So can we start sort of at the beginning?

[00:40:43] Because I literally went into this knowing maybe that famous shot, actually two famous shots, like the profile shots of a merged shot, like not even vaguely knowing what the plot was about. And the opening scene, I was like, what kind of experimental bullshit is Tamler making? You watch.

[00:41:03] I was like, if this is the whole film, this like I feel like the guy in in Clockwork Orange, she's going to have to have his eyes held open so that I can watch spiders and dicks like film projectors burning.

[00:41:17] Yeah. And like a goat maybe being like a headless like bleeding head of a of a sheep or goat or sheep. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. There's a moment there. And the funny thing is I knew you would have that reaction. I was like, this is some pretentious shit.

[00:41:35] Even for a pretentious filmmaker, this is pretentious. Yeah. But then it just it kind of resolves itself. Yep. Then it goes and turns into like a kind of a normal movie. Almost a Hitchcockian opening scene. And there's comes in like, I don't know something about the way

[00:41:50] it's shot, Doctor, the very how to describe her, the very. Scandinavian. Scandinavian Doctor telling the nurse that she's going to be in charge of this of this patient, you know, like it felt like a normal like it might be a thriller almost.

[00:42:09] Yeah, with some like a psychological thriller with some horror elements and some but like a deep dive into the psychology of two of two women, you know, one who's been assigned to care for the other. But then it doesn't stay that way. Right.

[00:42:24] It starts to unravel and become dreamlike. Things get dreamy, but like. Back and forth, dreamy, sometimes normal scenes, sometimes, you know, and then sometimes these dreamy surreal scenes. I really like the. Turn from that you were describing from caretaker

[00:42:45] who, you know, you're dealing with somebody who's selectively mute. There's nothing organically wrong with her vocal cords or her brain. She can talk. She knows like Alma, the nurse knows Elizabeth can talk. And she moves sort of from normal caretaker saying like, OK, like, you know,

[00:43:01] like what a caretaker would do, describing what they're going to do, talking, making sure, like reading her correspondence to being more of a chatty Cathy, you know, it's just them too, in this house and on this island, like you don't really see other people around.

[00:43:16] And so she goes from like that nervous chatter that you might like when the other person isn't talking and you feel like you need to be the one to make all the conversations. Like I felt that pressure, that that like this sort of anxiety

[00:43:29] that you feel when you realize that the other person isn't contributing. And so you keep talking and then and then like a friendship developed. And this is all at one way, you know, this I mean, the performance of Elizabeth is great too, like her facial expressions.

[00:43:46] It's not like she's not giving anything. She's giving something. And like you buy that a friendship is developing between these two women. And and that moment of intimacy, that culmination of the story of she starts off by saying she nurse Alma starts off

[00:44:06] sort of testing the waters of intimacy by telling her about this affair that she had for five years with a married man, but like she didn't take him seriously. That wasn't real to him. Right. And then the culmination of this moment of intimacy, where she

[00:44:20] speaks about this moment, this like pretty awesome moment. I was a little distracted, man. Well, because of the way it's shot, like it's erotic. Like if you didn't hear what she was saying, it's already just erotic. Right. The shot.

[00:44:38] They're both like intertwined in this and so she tells this story, which, you know, the orgy is whatever is kind of the intimate part. The story is she was there was just another girl who came to some baby naked on the beach.

[00:44:53] So she joined her and then these boys started watching and they had sex. But the real the real revelation there is that she got pregnant and chose to abort. Right. Imagine feeling comfortable enough with somebody who hasn't said a

[00:45:07] God damn word to you and you're revealing that much about yourself. Well, I think there's two really important things, right? So Alma, at the beginning of the movie, she just gives like a speech to the camera about how her life is so planned out.

[00:45:22] You know, she's marrying this person that she's engaged to. They'll have two kids which she'll raise and she'll work her job which she loves and she likes the security of having things planned out. And you know, there's a tiny hint of uncertainty.

[00:45:35] But but then when she tells this story, you get the sense that, wait a minute, is this enough for her? Because you get the sense that that that episode on the beach is like maybe the most important thing that's ever happened to her.

[00:45:49] The deepest she's felt like the most like real powerful feeling that she has just that that happened and how meaningful is one thing. And then of course that she got the abortion is another just she you get the sense she hasn't told anybody besides this woman.

[00:46:07] Right. And when she says it like you alluded to, she says it was never as good before and it's never been as good since. Like that's that was peak for her. As you say, she has these career clearly she has career ambitions,

[00:46:21] but she also realizes that, you know, her husband to be is studying to be a medical doctor. And so once that happens, she won't be a nurse, but she speaks wistfully about these nurses who were so devoted to being nurses that they're now just old retired nurses.

[00:46:34] And maybe, yeah, let's talk maybe back up a little bit to Elizabeth's decision just not to speak all of a sudden because the doctor gives a speech about that. Yeah, I want to read the whole thing or if you have it, I have it up.

[00:46:51] Go for it. Yeah. So the doctor knows that she's a selective mute. She obviously knows she's an actor and that this happened. And she seems to have a theory as to what's going on. And she just brings Elizabeth the mute actress in and says, I understand. All right.

[00:47:08] The hopeless dream of being not seeming but being at every waking moment. Alert the gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed to be seen through perhaps

[00:47:22] even wiped out every infection and every gesture, a lie, every smile, a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in.

[00:47:38] Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham,

[00:47:56] such things matter only in the theater and hardly there either. I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire.

[00:48:08] You should go on with this part until it is played out until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it just as you've left your other parts one by one. Yeah, it's so interesting because on the one hand,

[00:48:21] it seems like a plausible diagnosis and also obviously just so relevant to these ideas of an essential self versus we were talking about this with the Borja story, the public and the private self. But then also just it's just another role though. Like play it out. That's great.

[00:48:42] Like so there's also something like so deflating about it. It's I know you think that this is some heroic cry for truth. In a world of lies, but actually this is just another lie. But it's you know, it might be kind of a cool lie.

[00:48:56] So go for it. But you know, at a certain point, you're going to get bored with it and that's when you move on with your life. It's I almost felt like Bergman was just putting it out there. What he was yeah, right.

[00:49:09] Not the whole of the movie, but this is the heart of the movie. And you know, Bergman Bergman is constantly reminding you that this is a movie. Yeah, you know, like his his popping out with the film projector and his insertion of random tidbits of films

[00:49:26] from probably previous films like this is all. And even like a clip of him and the cinematographer spend nightquests just shooting the actual move. Yeah, right. So this is also a movie about art. I think what's so seamless about it.

[00:49:42] But the story is also about art and artifice. He's making a movie. We can talk about just the parasitic effects of if you make a movie. Now, anybody you interact with thinks, oh, am I going to be the subject for your next movie?

[00:49:54] Or are you just talking with me, you know, for this end of trying to create a great work of art? But I think one of the things he's saying and you see this in the speech is that that's also just life. Yeah. Right.

[00:50:07] There's nothing about this speech that you couldn't say to somebody who's not an actor. Yeah. What the doctor is suggesting is there's no escape from the lies that we present to the public, even by just refusing to engage and not to play the game.

[00:50:25] You are still playing the game. Yeah. You know, and that's just yeah, just being a human being. Yeah. And I think it was the Borges episode when we were talking about this. I think I said something like it turns out that that actors

[00:50:41] might be just the most genuine ones because they know they're playing the roles and we just were not aware they were playing the roles. But you said something about the fear that your stories might be taken

[00:50:51] by that person to be used like in a script or as motivation for a character. And, you know, here the big. The big tempting thing that Bergman is sort of like hanging over your head is that these are the same person, which we could talk about.

[00:51:08] But it is interesting in the context of trying to interpret this as a movie where this is one person with these jarred identities that. She might feel used by the actress for taking her own life stories so that she feels betrayed by the letter.

[00:51:31] She's like, here I told you this stuff in confidence and you're probably just going to use it. That's just like. Just being yourself, like yourself. Yeah, you're like you're also betraying your true identity, which is me right here. Like I have these real lived experiences.

[00:51:44] It's more than just a film. That's interesting, right? Like so because I was thinking, yeah, as you said, there are many people who interpret this as really the story of one woman, not two women. Although I think you can make a case for either of them,

[00:52:00] which is fascinating. Like it's like, you know, if I was going to make it about one woman, I would probably make it about Alma. I would think just because we get the movie more from her perspective and she actually talks than Elizabeth,

[00:52:13] but we find out a lot about Elizabeth too through the outside letters and that final speech. So you could definitely make the case also that it's only about Elizabeth. But I was thinking that what you lose if you see it that way

[00:52:27] is this dynamic of the kind of parasitic nature of just any friendship or relationship, especially if one of them is a kind of artist and then the other one is always suspicious that they are being used for the purposes of art.

[00:52:43] And but you're suggesting that that that actually stays even within if it's just one person, right? That that's yeah, you've used yourself as a means to an end where like of all of the things you would treat, you would think you treat yourself as the end in itself.

[00:52:59] And I thought that was just masturbating. But apparently you can do it in this way. You could do it in a more emotional way. By the way, let's just preempt anybody who's going to email us

[00:53:11] and tell us that persona is a singular like we I think we are. And we know. Yes. Yes. And it also means mask, a reference I read to a young the young Ian idea that what persona a kind of mask designed on the one hand to make

[00:53:29] a definite impression upon others and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual. I mean, that's what this movie is about, right? Like make a definite impression on others, conceal the true nature of who you are. The question is whether there's anything underneath the mask,

[00:53:43] I guess. Today's episode is brought to you once again by chess.com. Chess.com is the only sponsor that I have personally been using for almost 20 years. I absolutely love it. You can play your family, your friends. You can play strangers.

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[00:56:03] Like I have to give this movie credit because it could have been a massive, massively terrible movie. Bergman flirting with the fact that it could be interpreted as two women, but not making it, like making there be some things that make it seem impossible that it's two women

[00:56:22] and then some things make it seem it's impossible that it's one woman. So any interpretation that you choose to take comes with like an interpretive trade-off. So there is no real answer. You don't even get the sense that he cares that there is a real answer

[00:56:39] because what it's exploring is whatever this relationship is. It's giving you like raw materials, like really rich raw materials and allowing you to create what you create with it. So it's not like you can just make anything of it,

[00:56:55] but it's also not like you couldn't just make one thing of it because as you say, there are interpretive trade-offs both plot mechanic wise and also just thematically, I think there are interpretive trade-offs. So if you see it as two people,

[00:57:10] you lose this idea that there are this conflict within all of us of the public and the private and this desperate wish to be authentic and real and the actual you instead of the you that you perform for others, whether on stage or just as a person interacting

[00:57:30] with anybody. So you lose that element of it at least a little bit if you think of it as two people, but then if you think of it as one person, you lose the relationship dynamic, which is really, I wouldn't wanna lose either.

[00:57:44] Even if I do think maybe the most plausible interpretation is one person. But then I was thinking like, we don't have to choose either, right? This can be like a Schrodinger's cat kind of deal where it's all of those things depending on how we're observing it.

[00:57:58] Right, because like who is to say that that now I sound like a real pretentious film person. But who like, who says that there has to be a rule that there is one answer to this? Like it's, you know, when there is a quote,

[00:58:13] I think it's, I forgot to write down who said it, but I'm pretty sure it's how it has to be Alma. What am I talking about? It wasn't a man and it wasn't the same. Unless it's no stop, like. Which we need to talk about.

[00:58:27] But you know, in one of her ramblings, she says, is it possible, something like, is it possible to be one and the same person at the very same time? I mean, someone else, which is already just such an ambiguous statement. Where it's like.

[00:58:41] Was she like, I mean, we're gonna get into these scenes, I assume in more detail, but like, she literally says, I could, like we look alike, I could become you if I really tried. I could turn to you and she says your soul,

[00:58:53] but your soul would be too big. Yeah, right. Which is like, what is, what is that? I don't know. Cause part of the dynamic is she's starstruck by the. Actress, like. Again, something that you lose. Like those opening scenes, if you think of him as one person,

[00:59:12] of her just kind of chatting on sort of nervously, but also unselfconsciously. Like she's just, there's something kind of beautiful about it, if she is this starstruck nurse with all the good intentions in the world, just trying to help this person.

[00:59:29] Well, at the same time, like, oh cool, I get to talk to Elizabeth Vogler, the famous actress and I respect art and I respect the theater and it's just like, that's so awesome. And to see that just slowly become something really vulnerable

[00:59:45] and then something really, it wrecks her to some degree or it makes her hard. There's a kind of softness to her at the beginning and a hardness to Elizabeth, but certainly she becomes hard. She's explicitly says that Elizabeth has this hard look. Yes, right, yeah.

[01:00:07] And the scene with the husband. This crazy scene with the husband who's blind and I suppose just, he just throws in its blind in case you wanna think that this is actually two women at the same time. Like I find that very hard to believe, but yeah.

[01:00:23] But at one point, like Alma who's having sex with the husband, but in the guise of Elizabeth, says, I love your tenderness. And she says that looking directly at Elizabeth, like you're too hard to even understand this. You're too chilly and cold and removed and apathetic

[01:00:42] and I still have this softness and I appreciate this softness in another and it's almost like an aggressive thing at that point. Well, it reminds me, one way in which she's trying to maintain her softness she goes to bed, turns off the light,

[01:00:56] almost immediately turns on the light to put on face cream. Right. To maintain her softness. Exactly, I didn't notice that. That's great, yeah, absolutely. She's trying like desperately, like she wakes up like in that kind of almost panic and then starts sweating out. Very weird. Yes.

[01:01:19] Like I have like the miniest of theories that's half asked. I don't know if, okay. No, let's do it. Why not? Okay. Well, should we talk first about that scene where she finally talks because she threatens to throw boiling water? Sure.

[01:01:36] Yeah, what I got from it was a call back to the Scandinavian doctor. It's funny because in the one that I read it said life trickles in from the outside but on the on screen it said life oozes in. On all sides. I like that better.

[01:01:59] It struck me as that moment where this one is real life. You can play as much as you want but as soon as real life becomes real you're gonna snap right out of it. You're gonna talk. Yeah, you're gonna talk.

[01:02:11] You can try like play this role until you can't play it but just know life is gonna like when boiling water is about to be thrown you're gonna say no. Even for a beautiful white woman life will eventually find you. Right? Yeah.

[01:02:29] Now I'm trying to remember the order. So it's right after she reads the letter the kind of betrayal letter where the letter itself is pretty interesting and also just like this movie just conveys feeling in every shot but as she's reading the letter there's this drip, drip, drip

[01:02:45] which is in itself just kind of like it puts you a little bit on edge and then she reads her not saying anything and she's just too nasty about Alma but it's patronizing. It's like, oh she seems smitten with me in a charming way

[01:03:01] and then also just revealing what she told her which was some orgy but diminishing it, minimizing it. Some orgy she had with these two boys. Right, because actresses have orgy's all the time. You know? Isn't that cute? She told me her little orgy story. Yeah.

[01:03:14] And then what's interesting about like I think this is, so then it goes I think to the glass scene, right? Because this is where the resentment has built. Yes, but it's not, it hasn't been vocalized yet. That's like one of the most suspenseful and just tense scenes of

[01:03:33] and even though I've seen this now a few times like I didn't remember exactly when she steps on it and it's just so stressful this shard of broken glass is just out there. And so she walks in, she walks out and she doesn't step on it

[01:03:50] and then Alma leaves and then she walks in and steps on it. When she steps on it, like I just felt this like my legs just shiver run up my legs. Yeah. And then the film breaks down and with the montage

[01:04:03] and it's like it has to reconstruct itself. It gets blurry at first like that opening image. Now, Elizabeth is blurry and then she just kind of snaps into focus. So the blurry is just like another way of just reminding us, that is a movie. Remember there's a movie

[01:04:21] like the focus puller fucked up on this one. And it's also a callback to the blurry image that you get in the opening and the boy touching the screen. But yes, it's also very much about like this is a movie and because it's not just blurry

[01:04:38] it then immediately pops into focus. Yeah, immediately. So abruptly and they've reset a little bit but now that they've reset Alma is like self-conscious in a way that she hadn't been before. Right. Like she's yelling at Elizabeth for this betrayal but she's using words that she says

[01:04:59] she knows how phony she sounds, you know? It's like all of a sudden she's been granted this new she now is aware of the artifice of what she was doing in a way that or now she's forced to engage in artifice that she wasn't engaging with before.

[01:05:16] And that's a tragedy right there is that now all of a sudden this charming and beautiful innocence that she has is lost. Yeah, she went from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to like bitter. And now she has to confront now the same thing that Elizabeth was confronting before

[01:05:36] which is wait, is this all bullshit? You know, like is everything I'm doing just kind of bullshit? And Elizabeth starts laughing you know, or smiling and silently laughing and she says, you think this is funny you're laughing but it's not that simple for me

[01:05:51] because she's just earlier in this process. You know? Yeah. And then the next scene she goes and she's like is it really that important not to lie to always tell the be telling the truth? Why not let yourself be silly and dishonest?

[01:06:03] And it's like you get the sense that this is like a stage that Elizabeth went through you know, a long time before. She's passed this and now she's brought through her actions to, she's brought Alma to this point. And that's where

[01:06:23] you know, she starts saying how betrayed she was and then Elizabeth slaps her and then chases her and she runs into the house and takes this boiling oil and threatens to throw it in her face and that's when she talks. Really the only time she talks

[01:06:40] I guess she says nothing at one point but that's it. Well, there's a time where she whispers could be in her almost imagination she says you should go to sleep or you'll fall asleep at the table. Right, but that's thought that that was a dream.

[01:06:55] Yeah, she says did you talk to me last night? And she goes no. Yeah. And she looks very genuine about it she doesn't look like she's playing. Yeah, but definitely it was her voice so whatever it is. And she might not even exist. Right.

[01:07:10] That's as good a speaking as anything. Okay, so this is the most half baked it's not even a theory about the movie it's a theory about the specific part of the movie which is the boy who sandwiches this movie who is sort of like touching the projection

[01:07:32] of the face of Vogler. Or one of them. It's not totally clear. Yeah, but if we didn't mention it these women were picked because they look alike. Like they you know. And that they were friends too. Yeah, right.

[01:07:47] It seems to me that that boy is trapped in a movie that boy is a character from one of the roles that she played and like he just doesn't really exist he's like yearning to be outside of the movie to be like with his mom. Yeah.

[01:08:12] It feels like he's it feels like it's on the back of a projection screen, you know like if you were to walk right up to a screen it feels like he's in that room almost like a weird 2001 room where he's kept, you know.

[01:08:25] So like what you said about like he's been part of a role that she played. Like I think that's true regardless of whether she literally part of like she was in a play and like in the play she had a child

[01:08:40] in this origin story of how he came to be it was and this is in that final speech you know that kind of just gut wrenching just this is who you are a speech that Alma gives Elizabeth. The origin story of this boy is, you know

[01:08:57] as it's being presented is that she was at a party and you know it was kind of a glamorous party and people were talking about probably how great she was as an actress and joking around and saying the one thing you aren't as a mother

[01:09:10] you know like that's one role that you really can't be and it's like even though it was said in jest like it kind of bothered her and so she like it kind of bugged her so I could be a mother.

[01:09:23] And so she then like literally has a child to prove that person wrong that she can inhabit that role but she can't she cannot be a mother. She hates the baby from like the moment like she notices that it's in her body to like the present essentially

[01:09:40] like that she just doesn't have that in her and so I think like you can interpret what you're saying literally as like almost like in a surreal way like he's come to exist because of like she happened to act in this play

[01:09:56] or just you know it still applies as just the way it's described that description of it which is it was a role for her to be a mother and it's a role she just happened not to be suited for. The boy was left to be raised by relatives

[01:10:12] or something like that. But even what but the boy desperately loved her this is what so sad about the whole thing. He has like this deep unfathomable love for his mother but their interactions are awkward like not like what you would want in a play

[01:10:28] like it's not authentic. It's like her being a mother is not authentic it's not real and so like that's what's so heartbreaking about that and yeah and I see that boy one way or another as the son you know just like

[01:10:43] and whether he exists in one sense or doesn't exist he is trying to reach her but there is this screen in between. It's a very liminal like he's in a very liminal space like he's between the world somehow. Between the real world of being a son

[01:11:01] and having a mother and yeah. It has this for a super duper like concrete interpretation. She is in a movie she's currently filming this movie and in the movie she has a son. It's in the middle of filming the movie that she decides to stop talking

[01:11:25] but the cameras keep rolling. They're just they're just rolling. It's still a movie and the times that you get she's playing this role now as a selectively mute actor but they keep rolling. The doctor tells her the times life is gonna ooze in

[01:11:42] you can play this role but real life will step in and when she steps on the glass the movie has to like cut. When she's about to be thrown hot water or oil or whatever it is into her face she breaks character. Yeah right, right.

[01:11:58] I think she breaks character is a great way of describing like she and then she immediately gets back into character. It's not like okay in another movie now she would start talking. Right. It would just like waterfall. But no, that was like a little slip up for her.

[01:12:16] She really is as Alma says about her at the very beginning of the movie she's mentally strong. It's interesting that your interpretation sort of assumes that she's the central character because I think like you could definitely also run something where she is a projection of Alma's

[01:12:35] and maybe the projection of somebody also in a liminal space between I don't know who I'm going to be yet and this very well-defined person that she imagines herself to be but isn't quite there yet. She hasn't had a kid yet.

[01:12:51] She had an abortion of the one kid that she might have had and she's still a nurse. She clearly likes being a nurse and doesn't want to give that up. And as you said, it admirers the people who they're not afraid of their role or their mask.

[01:13:06] They embrace it with like everything and she clearly seems to think that that's something that's really meaningful. Like it gives your life meaning and Elizabeth is this sort of future projection of herself. Like this is what could happen if I go down this road.

[01:13:23] I have a child that I don't want and the child is abandoned and desperate and comes into this world unloved. That's where like the absence of God the absence of anybody that cares about you. It's one thing when it's, the absence of a loving God.

[01:13:41] It's another thing where it's the absence of just anybody that really loves you and wants you and she is, and this is her trying to work through that. Like I think you could also do something along those lines where Elizabeth is either not real

[01:13:57] or just a possible future self almost even if she's not gonna be an actress, just somebody who decided that this role that I'm playing as the loving wife and mother, I just can't like it's not, I'm not suited for that role. You know, this is nagging in Alma.

[01:14:16] This is like a fear that is nagging her from the very beginning even when she's like really confident about like her life and her role. Think about this way. Like I mean, I agree that your interpretation works just as well. The, you know, on the one hand,

[01:14:35] like I was reading it as wistful Elizabeth thinking if only I'd gotten that abortion and stuck to my career, like I would still be happy. I'd still have that bright eyed bushy tailed or in the way that you describe it or it could be like, you know,

[01:14:51] these are two temporal instances of the same woman who are encountering each other. Right, yeah. I mean, it can't be exactly because you don't get the sense that Alma's it's gonna quit nursing and become an actress but they are spiritual be the same. Yeah.

[01:15:09] I also admit that I treated Elizabeth as the main, the quote unquote main. I mean, if they're both the same person then the question makes less sense but because Alma's name is Alma, which is soul and so I kind of viewed it as well.

[01:15:29] She internalized, she stopped talking. The thing that kept talking was the thing inside her that thing, you know, her internal model argues. But, and yet we know so much more about because she's the confessor and she's, it's such a great performance

[01:15:46] because the way she's able to inhabit both the sort of softness and tenderness and charming vulnerability and openness in the beginning and then that transition to betrayal and then just a real hardness. Talk about Mulholland Drive. Yes. Yeah, I mean, obviously Mulholland Drive

[01:16:07] is so influenced by this invertigo essentially get you Mulholland Drive. Lynch was very influenced by some of these filmmakers, Tarkovsky too. And yeah, I've been seeing a lot of like European cinema from this period and like it's not, I would never say my respect for David Lynch

[01:16:27] has diminished because it's like that's not possible. He's the man but like he's like, I didn't realize to what extent he really is influenced by like just shots, themes, everything by this, those directors. Bear to luchee to the conformist, there's so much Lynchy and stuff in that.

[01:16:47] Yeah, the minute I started watching this, I was like, is this just Lynch in a different language? Just trying to sneak a little bit. Exactly. By the way, one of my first notes, actually right after the title of my note, which is persona, what the fuck, a dick.

[01:17:03] I know. But I think it's also like, I think that he knows that you're thinking that. And I think part of that is him making fun of himself and his art because it does kind of seem like almost like a German expressionist,

[01:17:18] like sprockets kind of thing at the beginning. Even though I think it's really cool and we could have a fruitful analysis of like shot by shot of it, like it all is like, I think it's like aware of this.

[01:17:29] But then also I think it's the flood of images is like the flood of confusion that a boy might feel of just being thrust into the world. Just all these things going on around him that he can't process and he can't figure,

[01:17:43] like there was cartoons and that's funny, but then there's like my childhood. And it's so good that way. It's like, the other side of him, though, I think when you think of Bergman, when you think of like the big questions of like existential questions of being in an,

[01:18:02] like a indifferent universe in this kind of abyss, that's in this too. But what's so kind of awesome about it is it's in it in the guys of an unwanted child, like a child that nobody wanted to exist. And the one person that he desperately needs

[01:18:21] is the person that hates him the most. The one person that he's reaching out for is someone that just wishes he didn't exist. So sad. Yeah. He's a fake boy from like Art House movie from the 60s and I still feel so bad for him.

[01:18:38] Because Bergman is just so good at like getting emotions at it, like almost better than anybody I can think of as I am just feeling this movie even when I don't understand it, I'm feeling it. I guess my point is a different one.

[01:18:53] Even if you don't want to feel it, looking at it is amazing. Like it's this, you know, I love this period of black and white filmmaking when like the film quality was good. Can we talk about the scene? So she, like we've referred to the details of it

[01:19:12] but the scene where she gives the speech, she gives this kind of devastating speech to Elizabeth about just how she may be playing out this role but people are suffering, including this boy. And there's earlier connections to like a boy in the Holocaust that's being like marched out

[01:19:31] by the Germans, which is, and it's so brutal. And it's being taken that way. She is being wrecked by this story, Elizabeth. She says you hoped the baby would be dead. You wanted a dead baby. And when you saw it and when it was presented to you

[01:19:49] you said, can't you just die? Like she gives that speech, it's repeated. Then all of a sudden like a cuts, there's one of these like kind of almost awkward edits. Like definitely on purpose, Bergman knows what he's doing.

[01:20:03] And then all of a sudden Alma is in a nurses costume, right? She's become a nurse again. And she goes up to Elizabeth and says, I've learned quite a lot, almost like a reversal now. Like you said, you were studying me. I was actually studying you.

[01:20:21] And then she does this thing with her hands like just comes up to her face and like grab something like that I at least this time around interpreted as like I'm grabbing your soul now, you know? And then she says, I'll never be like you

[01:20:36] which is echoing what she had said at the end of that speech. I am Alma, I'm not Elizabeth Bogler. I'm soft, I can still love people. And but now she says, let's see how long I can hold out. I'll never be like you. I'll change all the time.

[01:20:53] I can act. And she says, let's see. And then she says, you do what you want. You'll never get to me. And then she like kind of breaks down and kind of starts putting her hands in her head but then immediately looks up

[01:21:08] like she's slamming her hands on the table but then she immediately looks up and she looks hard and severe as if it's like, okay, that was an act. You'll see I've learned from you and you can't break me. But then she breaks down for real.

[01:21:21] So she does that and it's like this triumphant moment of like I have become hard like you, at the cost maybe of my own soul but I've defeated you. But then she breaks down for real and because I was just watching this before

[01:21:37] like what she says starts to not make any sense. Yes is the answer. I like, I don't know. Like what's the, what's winning us, me, me, I. And then she says then discussed, nausea. And this is right when then she slice,

[01:21:54] I guess I've seen this described different ways but the way I saw it, she slices open her own arm and then Elizabeth slucks the blood out of her arm and then Alma just starts slapping her in a very Hitchcockian scene. Just the way she's slapping her.

[01:22:13] Yeah, so I thought that was really interesting. First just her quick change into the nurses' costume but then this kind of like posturing like I've learned from you, I can beat this. I will run away from my true self

[01:22:27] and I'll do it successfully and I can act now and I can be inauthentic just like you can but then no she can't. And now she's starting to feel that nausea and disgust. This is like very sartrean at this point. So I get that part.

[01:22:44] The slicing of the arm and the sucking the blood aside from the vampire kind of illusions but I don't even know what that means, I don't get it. I don't either, I saw it and I was like, all right this is some weird shit.

[01:22:58] At this point my interpretive engines were just like, well I don't know that I can incorporate this one. I guess take some sort of succubus, soul sucking just like the grabbing. Yeah but then why is it slapping? Yeah. And just in terms of what actually happens,

[01:23:21] was it your sense that she cut her own wrist or her own arm, like forearm? I'm pretty sure it's Alma who cuts her own arm and then slaps. And Elizabeth's sucking. It's definitely Elizabeth sucking the blood of what appears to not be her own arm.

[01:23:43] But then the slap and then there's just like no blood. Like I don't know. Yeah, right. I mean it's just yeah and that's, and then all of a sudden Elizabeth is packing up and she's gone and then Alma's packing up and she's gone but they're not together anymore

[01:24:00] and Alma gets on a bus and who the fuck is that? And then it goes back to the boy. And then it ends on the boy and it ends with the film projector ending again, right? Yeah. Like I think that's so interesting the way this movie

[01:24:17] could really be about either one of them or both of them. We also get by the way those tender shots of them like those wistful shots of them embracing each other. Yeah and just when she's talking, when they're on the beach and they're in their hats

[01:24:33] and like this is in the good time, their relationship. And then I just think Alma, like BB Anderson is just so good in it. She's really good. It's remarkable and it doesn't work. It doesn't work without like really top tier performances from either of them.

[01:24:51] Like seriously, this film is one error away from being a bad film but it comes together. It comes, yeah. It's a shooting of it and I think it's part, it's the celebration of that too. Like it's one of the best shot filmed by Sven Nyquist

[01:25:08] is one of the great cinematographers and it shows. Like it shows that. It's like it makes you conscious of the editing too. And then the acting like so many close ups. So many, we haven't even talked about like how sometimes the actresses will look

[01:25:25] like they're talking to us at one point Elizabeth just starts the cameras on her and then she has a camera and then she turns the camera on us. So good. It's like all of a sudden we're getting like, oh wait this is about me now.

[01:25:39] And it's very, it flirts with Metta so much. Yeah, but not in an annoying way. And not in a way that detracts from the emotion of it. All right, anything else to say about this? I don't think so, but it's like if you're like me

[01:25:56] and not a get past the first few God-ord opening shots. It's great. And I love that, you know what I love about this movie too is that it never tempts you too much into having to solve a mystery. Like it could have done that.

[01:26:15] It could have been a little bit like Cache tempts us and we had obviously long conversation about whether or not there needs to be mohalla drive, same thing. This gives you a mystery but it's an emotional one. It just look at details matter a little less about like,

[01:26:31] you're not dissatisfied because there is no answer as to whether it's two women or one. You know if anything you get dissatisfied if you try to come up with two definitive and interpretation. And I think that's why I think the first time

[01:26:45] you watch it like there's no reason for you not to take it at face value that these are just two women, a nurse and a patient. One of whom is an actress that stopped talking. And I think that's a totally valid interpretation also.

[01:26:57] It's just the weirdness that you have to explain is number one, the husband scene. But you could think of that as a dream. And then number two, that their faces actually start to merge but then you could think of that like, this is what happens when two people

[01:27:14] who have to spend a lot of time in isolation. This is why it's ultimately just about you and I in Montana. Remember when those two young boys came across them? Oh my God. And then our sex that night. Never been the same since. All right.

[01:27:34] All right, on that note, join us next time on Very Bad Wis...