Persona
Not recommended. A Catholic review of this movie for parents.
Our review
A famous actress stops talking, and a nurse named Alma takes her to a house by the sea to help her get well. The two women start to seem like one mixed-up person. It is a dark and confusing movie for adults only, and Lumen does not recommend it. The craft is as high as film gets, and the score has nothing to do with craft. The film carries an explicit spoken account of group sex, an abortion, a split-second explicit image, and same-sex undertones between the two women that critics still argue over. Its picture of abortion as a lasting wound is true. Its world, where God is silent and the self dissolves, is not.
For parents
Adults only, and not recommended. This is not a film for teens, including film-club teens. If an adult in your house watches it for study, know what is in it. A long spoken account of group sexual activity and a later abortion. A split-second explicit male image in the restored cut. A lamb being slaughtered, a nail driven through a hand, news film of a monk burning himself, and a scene where one woman draws blood from her own arm and the other drinks it. Points to talk through with an older student who has met it in a course: Alma's guilt over the abortion is treated as real, and the Church agrees the wound is real and offers mercy in confession. Elisabet's rejection of her own child is shown as a horror. The film's God is silent. The Christian answer is that God has spoken in his Son.