Essayists and critics have called "Persona" one of the 20th century's major artistic works, and Bergman's masterpiece. "The Independent" critic Geoffrey Macnab noted that a number of other critics considered it among the greatest films of all time. "Empire"s David Parkinson gave the film five stars in 2000, noting its variety of interpretations and attributing them to Bergman's distortion of the border between real life and fantasy and calling it a "devastating treatise on mortal and intellectual impotence". Ebert added it to his Great Movies list in 2001, calling it "a film we return to over the years, for the beauty of its images and because we hope to understand its mysteries". Peter Bradshaw gave it four of five stars in his 2003 "The Guardian" review, calling it "a startling, even gripping essay". For "The Chicago Tribune", Michael Wilmington awarded it four stars in 2006 and praised it as "one of the screen's supreme works and perhaps Ingmar Bergman's finest film". In 2007, "Aftonbladet" called its prologue one of the more memorable moments of Bergman's filmography. "The New Yorker"s Pauline Kael said the end result was a "pity", but the scene where Alma describes her orgy is "one of the rare truly erotic sequences in movie history".