The BFI called "Persona" "stylistically radical", noting its use of close-ups. "Senses of Cinema" journalist Hamish Ford also noted its "radical aesthetics", citing a "genuinely avant-garde prologue". Critic Geoff Pevere called the prologue "one of the most audacious reset clicks in movie history". He summarized the blankness before a projector runs, leading to clips of classic animation, a comedic silent film, crucifixion and a penis, concluding that it summarized cinema. The montage's imagery is "rapid-fire", with Bergman saying the penis is onscreen for one-sixth of a second and intended to be "subliminal". The sheep is from Luis Buñuel's 1929 "Un Chien Andalou", and the personification of Death was used in Bergman's 1949 film "Prison". Michaels linked the spider in the prologue with the "spider-god" in Bergman's 1961 "Through a Glass Darkly". Törnqvist said that the spider is visible under a microscope, indicating its use for study. When the boy reaches out to his mother, it is to shifting photographs of Ullmann and Andersson. In addition to the prologue, the story is interrupted by a midpoint celluloid break.