Identikit

Elizabeth Taylor gives a stunning performance as a disturbed spinster who is looking for a man, but not for the reasons you may think. It's a bizarre movie, but also a very good one thanks to Taylor's excellent portrayal of a troubled woman about to go over the edge. Based on a novel by Muriel Spark.

Elizabeth Taylor reportedly said those words to her director Griffi when she came on the set the day after she left Burton for their first divorce. So with that mindset she went to work on one of her most unusual, daring and controversial films. From the moment 'The Diver's Seat' begins you know you are in a strange place. In Europe the movie was called 'Idendikit' so, with two names tagged to it thus making it schizophrenic from the first it easily falls into the realm of the ambiguous art film genre of the late 60's and early 70's. It's star, Elizabeth Taylor, appears here in one of her most remote and dangerous roles. She plays Lise a woman who is consumed by insanity and the desire to find the ultimate lover, the be all and end all of boyfriends you might say. As the film opens you are presented with a shattered view of a woman on the edge of something terrible. The camera moves past bald mannequins in a disjointed way. Is this Lise's view of others or is it a reflection of her ultimate fate? Upon being told to take a holiday from work after causing a scene in the office the film opens with her preparations to take flight to Rome. The film jump cuts from past to present as the police in Rome try to reconstruct her final fatal holiday in terrorist gripped Rome. Even Rome comes off as off kilter. This is not the Rome of Audrey Hepburn or Marcello Mastroianni but a city one hardly recognizes from the lack of typical filming locations one associates with 'Made In Rome!' movies. Director Giuseppe Patroni Griffi succeeds in presenting a uniquely Italian cinema verite film of the Muriel Spark novel. This is a unique film and very much of it's day. Its non-linear, experimental, almost documentary style will be hard to get into for any one not used to movies of this sort. But it is well worth the effort. So strange and challenging a film it is that it left the opening night audience at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival in stunned silence. The cast is well chosen and gives some oddly memorable performances. Ian Bannan as the macrobiotic sex-nut who tires to pick up Lise on the plane to Rome seems almost as mad as she is. It is a wickedly off kilter wild-eyed performance. The charming and always wonderful Mona Washbourne is sweetly touching as the woman who befriends the mad Lise and in doing so leads her to meet the man of her dreams. But the glue that holds it all together is provided by Miss Taylor who tops off her short list of insane characters from Susanna Drake to Catherine Holly with this daring and shocking portrait of Lise. She opens up as an actress that at the time would have been unthinkable to most of her contemporaries from the old M.G.M. days. That's one of the wonderful things about her film career. She came from an era in old Hollywood where she was trained and groomed to be glossy and perfect. But as times changed so did she and in doing so became much more than an MGM glamour girl, she became an actress with guts. In 'The Driver's Seat' she shows her chops as an actress and her willingness to accept challenges in her roles and in Lise she found a great one. One stunning image of her is when in her loud madwoman dress and raccoon painted eyes she challenges the airport security to frisk her. In that scene she seems totally there, totally gone, and totally in control as an actress.

This obscure movie, which has been so unfairly panned by the critics of its time, actually manages to deliver what I believe was the intention, a disintegrating world of a psychotic woman. As viewers, we are somewhere in the middle of two layers of realities, the one being the compulsive psyche of the main character, Lise, portrayed by Liz Taylor, and the other one being the absurd and incoherent events in her surroundings. I quite like this film, I had expected a B-movie with second rate production values, but I was at least partly mistaken, the cinematography is effective in painting the psychotic state of mind, example; Lise turning to her right, framed in the left side of the screen, when addressing someone. Another scene, where Lise is attempting to get in touch with a woman she befriended just recently, who may be stuck in the lavatory from some illness, we see Lise at the same time completely absorbed by her own mirror image, disconnected from any real emotional concern over the lady that might be in peril. Maybe some think these are cheap means of making a weird and psychotic setting, still the movie makes the viewer access the process of disintegration of Lise. Furthermore, some scenes are chillingly before its time regarding terror events and crimes; terror do pop up everywhere these days, and maybe a modern day public can better identify themselves with a confused and disintegrating persona as Lise. We can barely understand our own feelings and our driving forces - how can we then understand the complexity of the human society in terms of terror and conflicts?

I have been watching and enjoying Elizabeth Taylor films all my life and this is one of her best. I think this film is one of the most underrated films of all time. It is flawless in every aspect...story, directing, set, music, clothes, and of course acting. The beautiful and talented actress Elizabeth Taylor does not walk through this one. She gives it her all, as well as does everyone else involved in this work of Art. This is not a spoon fed piece of sugar, rather a serious and artistic look at the psychology of a "person".

I disagree with the reviewers here whom simply write this off as a bad movie. "Identikit", or as it is known on the deceptively retitled US videotape release, "Psychotic", is a film that requires the viewer to think about what is happening, studying the disjointed events which gradually come to an ambiguous conclusion (which slightly echoes "Blow-Up" I might add). It is obvious that every detail of this film is deliberate and well crafted. Liz Taylor fans used to her more mainstream movies may be a bit put-off. If you like offbeat dramas from this time period that require a little brainwork then you may dig it. If you like having everything spelled out for you then you may find it "bad". I dug it!