Is reality even objective, or is perception all there is? The endlessly complicated human psyche fabricates false images everywhere around us, leading us to believe that which we perceive to be true. What is real to us could not be real to the world around us, though. Identity crises is mostly characterised by this. Let’s browse the list below that addresses the issue of identity crisis.
1. Last Year At Marienbad (1961)
Director- Alain Resnais
“X,” a lovely and enigmatic man, approaches “A,” a seductively distant woman, intent on persuading her that they are not strangers, during a social gathering in a gorgeous and spacious château with high ceilings and a fine collection of artwork. In reality, “X” swears that they met the previous year in the Czech spa town of Marienbad, but the bewildered woman has no memory of their discreet amorous meeting. Is “X” telling the truth, though, as they stroll through the opulently furnished halls of the huge estate?
2. Solaris (1972)
Director- Andrei Tarkovsky
Renowned psychologist Kris Kelvin is on his way to the space station orbiting the planet Solaris. A few years ago, Solaris was the focus of scientific investigation. Then, when exploring the surface, a research group suffered a deadly accident, and a member of the rescue team claimed to have seen odd apparitions. This diminished interest in the planet among scientists to the point that the number of crew members on the space station fell from 85 to only 3. Dr. Kelvin arrives and realises something unusual is going on right away.
3. Ordet (1955)
Director- Carl Theodor Dreyer
A Danish farm in August 1925. The relatively well-known widowed patriarch Borgen has three sons: Mikkel, a kind-hearted atheist whose wife Inger is expecting, Johannes, a follower of Jesus, and Anders, a young, frail man in love with the tailor’s daughter. The girl’s father’s fundamentalist sect is incompatible with Borgen’s traditional Lutheranism; he resists the union until the tailor prohibits it, at which point Borgen’s pride compels it to take place. Inger, the family’s sweetheart and light, unpredictably experiences pregnancy-related issues. After the arrival of the logical doctor, four different religious perspectives become crystal clear after a long night.
4. The Double Life Of Véronique (1991)
Director- Krzysztof Kieślowski
Véronique is a stunning young French woman who wants to become a well-known singer. Though the two are unrelated, Weronika, who lives in Poland and aspires to a similar job, resembles Véronique in appearance. Both ladies deal with the ups and downs of their respective lives, with Véronique starting an unusual relationship with a puppeteer who might be able to assist her with her existential problems. Weronika and Véronique are not aware of each other, but they feel a great, mysterious connection and a phantom companion.
5. Possession (1981)
Director- Andrzej Żuławski
Mark’s wife, Anna, leaves him and their son after she confesses to him that she is having an affair. After being duped, Mark goes in search of Heinric, but when he finds him, he is beaten. Following several violent altercations between Mark and Anna, Mark hires a private eye to watch her. As Anna spirals out of control, it becomes increasingly obvious that she is concealing a much larger and more mysterious secret.
6. Persona (1966)
Director- Ingmar Bergman
Elisabet Vogler, a Swedish actress, loses her voice onstage during a performance of Elektra. She is close to going into catatonia the next day. No medical condition that could have caused these deficits is identified by the doctors overseeing her case. Elisabet is given the care of a nurse named Alma, who thinks Elisabet has some kind of inner strength that allows her to chose to remain silent. The doctor offers Elisabet and Alma a reprieve in her own private beachside summer cottage because Elisabet is not permitted visits from either her husband or her kid.
Throughout the break, Alma speaks to Elisabet often, eventually spilling personal information about her life. When Alma talks, Elisabet answers, and Alma utilises these interactions as her own therapy sessions. Elisabet is someone Alma admires and aspires to be like. Alma gains more knowledge about her patient as they spend more time together alone. Due to what she has learnt about Elisabet, Alma too starts to change, which she now consciously attempts to resist.
7. Mulholland Drive (2001)
Director- David Lynch
The wide-eyed actress, Betty, steps foot in bustling, sun-kissed Hollywood yet untarnished by the false promises of the greedy film industry. Betty goes into Aunt Ruth’s pricey apartment full of optimism and ready to prove her worth. Unbeknownst to her, fate has other plans for her and is preparing her for life-altering encounters with the unanticipated, the incomprehensible, and the unknown. Now, a strange key to a mysterious keyhole, an even stranger indigo-blue cube, the young director, Adam, and one cryptic woman—the amnesiac brunette and devilishly seductive car crash survivor, Rita—lie in the centre of an intricate labyrinth of half-truths, faded memories, unrequited loves, and dangerous encounters with the city’s ugly face. Time flies, though, and Rita’s hazy past begs for explanations. Because both women deserve to know the truth.
8. Under The Skin (2013)
Director- Jonathan Glazer
A young woman in Scotland searches the roads and streets for the human prey she came to loot as an alien creature possesses her earthly form. She lures her lonely and abandoned male prey into an ethereal realm where they are stripped and devoured. The alien visitor, however, starts to alter as a result of existence in all its complexity. With terrible and terrifying results, she starts to realise that she is a person.
9. 3 Women (1977)
Director- Robert Altman
Pinky is an awkward adolescent who starts work at a spa in the California desert. She becomes overly attached to fellow spa attendant, Millie when she becomes Millie’s room-mate. Millie is a lonely outcast who desperately tries to win attention with constant up-beat chatter. They hang out at a bar owned by a strange pregnant artist and her has-been cowboy husband. After two emotional crises, the three women steal and trade personalities until they settle into a new family unit that seems to give each woman what she was searching for.
10. Lost Highway (1997)
Director- David Lynch
The wealthy jazz tenor saxophonist Fred Madison and his soft-spoken wife Renee’s minimalist home in the sunny City of Dreams are filled with guilt, denial, mistrust, and dread, signs of the marriage’s slow decline. The reticent couple’s front door has been receiving mysterious unlabeled videotapes for the past three days. The cassettes’ progressively horrific contents have caused a string of odd hallucinations, dissociation, and murders. Now, an amnesic Fred finds himself on death row, while elsewhere in the city, a young auto mechanic named Pete Dayton, who recently got out of prison, plays risky love games with the statuesque femme fatale who serves as Mr. Eddy’s trophy girlfriend.
