Elizabeth Taylor rose through the ranks, from a well-respected child actor in the 1940s to one of the cinema’s biggest stars in the ‘50s to mid-‘60s.
For a performer of her magnitude, Taylor made some daring choices from the latter part of the 1960s onward, including a bickering, less-than glamorous housewife in Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virigina Woolf (starring alongside her equally famous husband, Richard Burton) to eyebrow-raising performances in a couple of Joseph Losey movies (Boom, Secret Ceremony).
Many of Taylor-s die-hard fans were less than enthusiastic about much of her later work, films they that considered beneath her talents. Even sleazy.
Identikit, a 1974 Italian film directed by Giuseppe Petroni Griffi, may, on the surface, seem like one of these “sleazy” entries in Taylor’s filmography. And it is an odd movie, to be sure. But it is also fascinating as hell.
Lise (Taylor) is slowly unraveling. A middle-aged American living in Copenhagen, she boards a plane bound for Rome, for what she tells friends will be a much-needed holiday. She arrives in the city during a tumultuous time; radicals are chased through the airport and there’s even a terrorist bombing.
On top of that, local detectives and Interpol agents are circulating pictures of Lise, asking questions of anyone and everyone who came into contact with her recently. Through it all, the emotionally unstable Lise continues to meet people, including Bill (Ian Bannen), an oversexed Brit who swears that the macrobiotic diet has changed his life; a member of the English aristocracy (played by none other than Andy Warhol); and Helen Fiedke (Mona Washbourne), a kindly elderly woman with whom Lise goes shopping one afternoon.
But Lise is looking for more than a good deal at the mall. She wants to form a connection with the “right person”, someone she hopes will be willing to help her carry out a very specific task.
Taylor holds nothing back in her performance, taking Lise from excessively arrogant one moment (she is condescending to sales clerks and maids) to confused and out-of-touch the next (while shopping with Mrs. Liedke, the two head into the bathroom. When Mrs. Liedke goes into a stall and does not respond to Lise, Lise walks out, saying nothing to the bathroom attendant except that the woman in the stall might need help).
When it comes to men, Lise seems equally bewildered. She does not like Bill, yet meets with him on two separate occasions; and once even finds herself alone with seemingly Good Samaritan Carlo (Guido Mannari), who offers her a lift, then drives her to a secluded spot and attempts to rape her. Taylor handles the characters odd mannerisms perfectly, and while we do not always like her, we are captivated by Lise, and on the edge of our seats as her story unfolds.
Director Petroni Griffi expertly builds the mystery surrounding Lise, intercutting flashbacks, flash-forwards, and even a few shocking moments (like a rebel tossing a grenade at a moving vehicle).
Throughout the film, the police interview those who have had run-ins with Lise, some of whom are questioned more intensely than others. Carlo is subjected to a particularly grueling interrogation, a flash-forward that occurs before we the audience even see what transpired between he and Lise.
All the while, we’re wondering what it is that the authorities are after? Did Lise commit a crime? Did she fly to Rome to hide out? Or is it something else?
All questions are answered in the film’s final 10 minutes, and I admit I was surprised by a lot of what transpired towards the end.
Based on the Muriel Spark novel “The Drivers Seat” (which was the film’s title in North America), Identikit is, along with its more bizarre elements, a beautifully shot motion picture. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro occasionally interjects moments of natural beauty, which momentarily break the story’s tension. This plus the soft piano score by Franco Mannino make Identikit a movie of contradictions, where art occasionally eclipses the chaos.
Thanks to Liz Taylor, and an intriguing storyline that seems fractured at first only to be expertly assembled over time, Identikit is incredibly engaging.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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