Will you join me in a game of chess?

So today I went to see Persona for the second time (yes, I'm in one of those on repeat moods). If Bergman's movies are not what you'd call 'easily digestible', one with such a title as Persona should have you doubly pre-warned.

Anyone who has surprised himself in a state he found irrecognizable, will find this movie disturbing. Others, like a couple I passed by as I was getting out of the movie theatre, will say they need a cup of coffee - yes, Bergman tends to be boring when he goes on talking about the essence of being human, and the basis for personality, and the supposed unity of the self that is really no more than a shattered mask... These Swedish directors should really throw in some spectacular special effects to distract us from all that existential crap.

Anyway, if personality is a narrative we construct in order to make sense of ourselves and to appear coherent to others, what happens when we get writer's block?



PS: I've never learned to play chess. And I'm not sure I would, even if my life depended on it.