Secret Ceremony

[Jack Gurney]

Well, I've seen some perplexing films in my time, but this one takes the biscuit. Actually directed by Joseph Losey (hence the casting of Elizabeth Taylor, one would imagine) but obviously a direct influence on Robert Altman's "loopy woman" trilogy that would soon follow (THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK, IMAGES, THREE WOMEN), this British and somewhat scrace psychological horror-thriller from 1967 is not for those who like their films linear and easily explained. To try and sum it up in one or two paragraphs would be a near impossibilty, not to mention an insult to its director's mastery, but the closest one might get would be this. Leonora (Taylor) a high class prostitute, is accosted on a bus by the clearly bonkers Cenci (Mia Farrow), a 22 year old woman who acts like a child, and who labours under the apprehension that Taylor is her mother, who died recently. Taylor plays along with it, they have lots of odd dialogue moments, Robert Mitchum plays a stepather figure with latent paedophile tendencies, and Peggy Ashcroft and Pamela Brown are the grasping executors. The whol;e thing is an exercise in ambiguity, and by the ending one is no wiswer than one was at the start!! Fuck, they're shutting the library, I'll have to finish this later. The Nazis.



NB: i did edit this, but the computer frazzled it. I can't be fucking bothered to do it again. Just watch the bloody thing. It's good.

[moonfleet]

I first thought it was a british production,BUT, looking to a film dictionary, it's american (soon I'll find a real british one to speak about !)



First, forever thanks to the producers, critics, movie lovers, who allow finaly the edition of " no more expected films".



So, some days ago, I had the chance and surprise to find this Losey's which I do like most, in my favourite shop.(best things happen by surprise, that's for sure)

......Mia Farrow just after "Rosemary's", Elizabeth Taylor whishing to do another one with Losey after the "Boom", and Robert Mitchum passing by as usual(but he is so good and powerful as an atypical character for him), blend this with a gothic touch and it's......pure pleasure, I tell you !!



Moon.