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I appreciate this thread - Mark for starting it off with your description and analysis, and the people who have sporadically added to it over the years.
I just watched Persona for the first time. Maybe it's too soon after viewing to respond to it; then again, perhaps a gut response is most appropriate. Just as Alma ultimately takes Elisabet's silence as a provocation, and in turn tries to provoke Elisabet into speaking, maybe that's what Bergman is trying to provoke from the audience - a gut response.
I won't further try to guess what Bergman is trying to get across. The film is such a sparse canvas, with minimalist sets, almost like the sets in a black box theater, with practically no score, and one character - or perhaps one-half of a character - who does pretty much all the talking. And on this canvas we can legitimately paint whatever interpretations we wish.
Persona is Greek for 'mask' and the film - in a mere 79 minutes - succeeds in peeling off all kinds of masks and uncovering various layers of the human psyche. The Greeks wore masks when performing in the theater, and the silence of Elisabet, who is an actress, begins the process of taking off the masks, of disposing with our convenient personalities.
At first, Alma seems content with her apparently simple life, but Elisabet's silence quickly acts as a bright mirror that burns through this surface appearance, and once Alma - unused to being listened to - gets a chance to unwind, she quickly unravels.
It seems as legitimate to view Alma and Elisabet as one person as two separate characters. For me, this is one of the films's main reminders - we barely have to scratch the surface to reveal that we are inseparable. That, a la Jung, there is a collective consciousness. How do we, individually or, more importantly collectively, cope with horrifying images such as the famous photo from the Warsaw ghetto of Jews being led to their deaths, and the footage of the self-immolation of the Vietnamese monk? Silence? Insanity? Do we dare peel back the masks of these images and reflect upon their reality?
To me, the film is an existential scream, plunging headlong through the camera's lens to try to reveal some essence - any essence - that lies beneath, or in between, the intricate layers of representation that exist in our minds.
In a final act of taking off the mask, Bergman boldly exposes himself and his camera crew in the last scene - much as if the Wizard of Oz had voluntarily come out from behind the curtain - as if to say, 'It's all right there in front of you, if you care to look.' This is reminiscent of the stories about the first thing ancients would do upon attaining enlightenment: they would laugh at the absurdity that what they had been 'seeking' for so long was right there in front of them, inside of them - inside of all of us - all along.
Aside from everything else, it's simply a delight to watch two such beautiful women, excellent actresses, in the hands of such a masterful director and cinematographer.
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