MOVIES ARE BACK! It's been a long while but I've finally picked up my metaphorical pen once again to take a look at the very oddball film that is THE SECRET CEREMONY. A viewing print was provided to me through the kind auspices of Weaverman over at FLEAPIT OF THE MIND. Ol' Weave wrote about this film a while back on his late lamented blog FLEAPIT ANNEX (since I don't seem to find it on his current FLEAPIT blog. Sadly, that means you're stuck with just this little attempt on my part.

Released in 1968, SECRET CEREMONY is very typical of the times in that it takes an extremely oddball tack and celebrates it's own elusiveness. At first you're not sure exactly what is going on or why the characters are behaving so strangely. However, before total exasperation or annoyance sets in, the film makes everything fairly clear. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor as Leonora: apparently a ho who is still suffering over the drowning death of her 10 year old daughter 5 years before. Dressed all in black, Leonora boards a bus only to be aggressively stared at by a young woman (Mia Farrow); who oddly (I'll be using that word "odd" a lot) actually sits right down next to Leonora and starts quietly crying. The odd gaper we later find out is named Cenci starts following Leonora everywhere -- even to her daughter's gravesite. As Leonora faces Cenci with annoyance, somehow Leonora agrees to follow the girl back to a huge and ornate house. Now, you must keep in mind that so far throughout the film all this takes place wordlessly.

Once inside the huge house, Leonora notices a framed photo featuring Cenci and a woman who looks EXACTLY like Elizabeth Taylor. Cenci falls into Leonora's lap and tearfully calls her "Mommy" over and over. Leonora denies she's her mother and explodes into a "What the hell do you want from me?!?" All this results in Cenci offering Leonora breakfast; which she dutifully prepares and serves Leonora from a dumbwaiter. After devouring the food (Liz Taylor's rather brave performance here shows her wolfing down the food in a most un-ladylike manner finally punctuated by an impressive burp), Leonora slowly plays along with Cenci's self-delusion and both women "play" mother and daughter. However, the interesting thing is that, from time to time, both women display that the illusion is not true and that even Cenci occasionally knows that they're playacting. While initially Leonora sees this as an opportunity for monetary gain (Cenci is a rich heiress and Leonora starts nicking small expensive objects and even contemplates taking furs and clothes), Leonora eventually comes round to a genuine compulsion to take over as the girl's mother (due to the loss of her own drowned daughter) and essentially moves into the mansion posing as the dead mother's sister to the outside world.

While Cenci is obviously severely unhinged, Leonora's assumption of the mother role seems to help. For a bit. While mostly alone together in the vast house, the two are first infiltrated by a pair of Cenci's avaricious aunts Hilda and Hannah (Peggy Ashcroft and Pamela Brown) who apparently make periodic trips to the house to rob it blind; taking away everything they can carry. Then Cenci's step father Albert (a predatory Robert Mitchum) begins showing up. Cenci has already mentioned the fact that Albert had "touched" her and her real mother had thrown him out of the house. Albert's obvious semi-incestuous activities (what do you call it with a step-father anyway?!?) has probably greatly contributed to Cenci's mental problems which only worsened with her mother's death. The 1968 making of the film means that a great many odd sexual proclivites are pushed to the forefront as filmmakers literally threw off the reins restraining them up to that point. Not only are Albert's constant sexual advances on Cenci talked about with vivid detail but also Cenci evinces a strange proclivity towards jumping into bed with Leonora -- she even hops into the bathtub with Leonora at one point -- and eventually, while massaging Leonora, stradles her (in the same exact manner as has been previously described having occurred with Albert) and begins to erotically kiss her way down Liz Taylor's naked back. Such uncomfortable perversity on the screen was becoming de riguer at the time but it all is naturally occurring from the obviously screwed-up mind of Cenci's character and doesn't seem gratuitous. In one scene, before Albert turns up in the movie, Cenci actually hallucinates one of Albert's incestuous assaults in the kitchen and Leonora observes her actually acting out the events as if he were there. Eventually, Leonora comes to depend on her new role as Cenci's mother as much (if not more) than Cenci does. Naturally, events spiral towards more and more insanity and tragedyas the film unspools; just what one would expect from a 1968 film which points the way to the downbeat nature of the pessimistic cinema of the 1970's.

SECRET CEREMONY is indeed representative of the filmmaking that was going on in the late 60's-early 70's. For some this kind of filmmaking can be quite annoying. And while SECRET CEREMONY does, at times, veer dangerously close to the annoyance factor, I think this extremely oddball character study does successfully avoid pissing off the viewer to become something of a fascinating viewing experience. Mia Farrow does a fantastic job portraying the madness of Cenci without going over the top while Elizabeth Taylor is also surprisingly good (especially for THIS time period when she had a tendency to ham it up). Taylor, in fact, is rather brave in her performance; especially in that her age and weight are not tiptoed around. Robert Mitchum is also excellent in one of his most strange and unlikeable roles; he doesn't play Albert with the operatic villany he displayed in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER but instead is that much more creepy and unpleasant by playing Albert with extremely subdued reality. An extremely difficult role to pull off but Mitchum succeeds. Peggy Ashcroft and Pamela Brown (a shrieking harridan of a Queen Eleanor of Acquitaine to Peter O'Toole's Henry II in BECKET) are also splendidly awful as two distasteful, grasping spinsters whose visit to the house plays more as a kleptomaniacal shopping trip than a friendly visit. And that is essentially the entire cast. The limited setting and small cast practically screams "stage play" but it somehow avoids seeming claustrophobic. Joseph Losey's direction in sure and stable if unspectacular. There is a slight whiff of the gothic about the film but it's mostly a character study of a group of people with serious psychological issues. If this is the type of film that generally annoys you, SECRET CEREMONY doesn't offer anything that will change your mind. However, if you are a more patient viewer with an interest in characterization and acting then this one will surely give you something to sink your teeth into.