revisiting Persona

In the weeks that have passed since we watched Persona, I have been trying to connect the film with our more recent readings to figure out if it can be read as a feminist film, or at least as portraying a more feminist perspective than the classic Hollywood narrative.  One of the key elements of Persona that makes it subvert from a classic narrative structure is how little is explained or clearly signaled; even the question of whether or not Alma and Elizabeth switch places or somehow swap personalities is left ambiguously hinted at.  The entire time spent at the beach house becomes questionable as some sort of fantasy, given the visual cues involving Alma drinking alcohol, her hysterical mood swings, and the tender moments between the two women that make their relationship appear more intimate than just nurse and patient. 

Cixous might characterize the entire experience at the beach house as Alma’s personal feminine writing, perhaps like the secret diary Cixous talks about in The Laugh of Medusa.  Alma divulges infinite truths about her life to Elizabeth, often in the throes of an emotional breakdown, while Elizabeth remains mostly unaffected.  Alma is attempting Cixous and radical feminism’s consciousness raising dialogue, yet there is something inherently wrong with how she treats Elizabeth; Alma assumes that because Elizabeth is also a woman that she will understand or commiserate with her.  It also lacks in being a dialogue because Elizabeth never actually responds to Alma’s monologues.  In this way, Alma’s “connection” with Elizabeth can be interpreted as quite the opposite of a feminist perspective, but rather fall into a more classic narrative use of the woman as a silent, plot-moving, sounding board against which all heroes bounce their own sufferings and ease their pains, while simultaneously seeking physical pleasure and comfort.  While their relationship is not explicitly this way, I would argue that it does not matter that Alma is a woman, given her use of Elizabeth as essentially a prop in her own drama.  In many ways, Alma perpetuates Elizabeth’s silence by focusing on herself – if we look at Cixous’ model of fear of decapitation, Alma could be seen as maybe not the initial decapitating force, but the force that maintains it.  Perhaps this is one place where we can actually see the blending of the two women’s personas into one autonomous being:  Alma could be silencing herself out of fear of decapitation by maintaining Elizabeth’ s silence (if they are in fact one whole).  Cixous talks about how women silence themselves in order to keep their heads, and in this case Alma is almost on the verge of decapitating herself with the demons she faces in herself (as expressed to Elizabeth).