philbrick44 Review of A Severed Head

A Severed Head (1971)

for all its faults a severed head almost makes it

[6/10 · 11 January 2012]

As previous reviewers have noted, this is not a horror film, but a comedy based on an Iris Murdoch novel. Curiously, what should have been pitched at a farcical level comes across flat and the humor, such as it is, very British and very dry. Murdoch's novel itself reads as a near-farce, tongue in cheek, without a demand from the reader to suspend disbelief, but to go along for the ride. The portentousness of the "severed head" comment and the perverse exotic erotic goings on of Honor Klein (Claire Blooms in the film--and she does look like a Modigliani!)--all read like symbolic trappings intended to indicate some deeper meaning (it ain't there.) The film comes across restrained, if not nearly constipated, thanks mainly to Ian Holm's performance. His character, our triply-cuckolded protagonist, is frankly a quite unsympathetic character, really a nasty little man throughout. In fact, it is difficult to work up much feeling for any of these characters. Formally, this is just this side of a filmed stage play (scripters Priestly and Murdoch having adapted screenplay from a stage play), it plays like it, and makes it a mediocre film experience. Having said all that, there is something , or there are some things that keep it going on the DVD player: Lee Remick is actually trying to do farce, which is whatis called for, while Claire Bloom is intriguingly exotic and erotic(a creation of Murdoch's. If you're somewhat anglophilic, you'll probably enjoy this, trailing its clouds of "swinging sixties London" glory behind it, a kind of last gasp I suppose.