In paying homage to nurses and their devotion to duty, I have chosen two highly artistic films. They have both actually received references in past articles of mine, but now are at the forefront where they rightly belong.

Both are based on long-term care. This allows for bonds to be made, and thus psychological dilemmas are spawned. In all their glory, nurses are still human, and are subject to the same emotions, frailties and shortcomings as the rest of us. Nursing is a difficult and often dirty job, and those who have taken up the profession deserve our admiration.

Persona

Persona is Liv Ullmann’s first film with Ingmar Bergman. Her friend Bibi Anderson had already worked on several films with the famed director. Persona came about during a difficult time for Bergman. He actually wrote the screenplay from a bed in the hospital. It is his most complex film up to that point.

A stage actress suddenly stops talking during the middle of a performance, and refuses to speak thereafter.

The nurse on her ward is assigned to go live with the her at the doctor’s beach-side vacation home. The relationship grows into one which the nurse confides her life’s secrets to the self-imposed mute. There are many surreal moments, and a great deal of perplexing ambiguity. Bergman himself describes the film as “a poem of images.’

Talk To Her

Talk To Her is one of Pedro Almodóvar’s highest crowning achievements.  A bullfighter is injured in the ring, which subsequently leaves her in a coma.  Her lover wrestles with her unfortunate state, and is enlightened by a caring nurse at the hospital.  The two men develop a lasting friendship, in which they try to help one another.

Almodóvar fills the screen with beauty, tenderness, and pain as the boyfriend is instructed to Talk To Her.

Until next time, I hope you have a great viewing experience.  Comments are welcomed at cinespire@gmail.com.