Jerzy Skolimowski
Previously seen:
Deep End (1970) 9/10
The Shout (1978) 7/10
Essential Killing (2010) 5/10
Watched for this log:
Moonlighting (1982) 8/10
Splendingly claustrophobic allegory following a group of Polish workers illegally hired to renovate a house in London. Jeremy Irons is their boss (though he has a boss of his own) and as the only English-speaker & keeper of the money is also essentially their jailer. Some irony in their being no freer in an ostensibly free country away from the communist rule at home.
Their situation in London is cast against the political upheaval happening back in Poland (the military repression of the Solidarity movement), about which they are kept in the dark by the very ambigious Irons. On the one hand, you see the individual pressure he feels trying to keep the group going with limited money & numerous setbacks, but the way he treats these workers (shown as none-too-smart) is undoubtedly cruel even if he believes he is acting in their best interests. Irons carries the movie very impressively, given that his voiceover and limited exchanges with Londoners is basically all the dialogue you get.
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Rysopis/Identification Marks: None (1965) 5/10
Walkower (1965) 6/10
Rece do góry/Hands Up (1967/1981) 5/10
These are grouped together because they are a kind-of trilogy, with Skolimowski playing the same character in all three (though this is only loosely true for Rece do gory). The first two are clearly early efforts. They are very new wave in style & the character Skolimowski plays is one of those disillusioned young men you tend to get in new wave films, presumably autobiographical. Not a great deal happens, but they don't outlast their welcome at just over an hour each and they show him learning techniques as director.
The third one is an oddity - it's a film that was made in 1967 as the third in this trilogy, but banned and some of the footage then reassimilated into a new film in 1981 when the ban was lifted. it's experimental and I couldn't make a great deal of sense of it! There's a bit of meta stuff discussing the nature of films and so forth, some political backdrop with contemporary footage of Solidarity movement and some stuff I don't really know what it was supposed to be. I'd say this is for Skolimowski completists or experimental mafia only!
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Bariera (1966) 7/10
Takes the nouvelle vague stylings of Identification Marks None & Walkover into more surreal, dream-like territory. Much like the later Deep End, the soundtrack plays an important role in setting the tone & was one of the highlights for me. This is an enigmatic film, full of strange imagery and dialogue that doesn't quite follow - so if the previous two were most reminiscent of early Godard/Truffaut, this is one which brings to mind Resnais.
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Shorts:
Oko wykol/The Menacing Eye (1960)
Hamles/Little Hamlet (1960)
Erotyk (1960)
Pieniadze albo zycie/Your Money or Your Life (1961)
Four short shorts, mostly under 5 mins. For me, the pick of these was easily Erotyk which makes good use of mirror & manages to conjure an unsettling atmosphere in its short runtime. Hamles was the longest & least interesting, skip that one.
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Le départ (1967) 6/10
Light-hearted new wave jaunt, with attractive and likeable leads (shame Catherine-Isabelle Duport was in so few films, she's cute!). Not a great deal in story or depth, it's more a film carried on charisma and pacing. I think Bariera from the previous year was a much more interesting & ambitious film visually - this being his first non-Polish film is perhaps the reason - but there are some nice touches and you see some of Skolimowski's familiar motifs like mirrors featuring. Also the soundtrack veers into that 60s 'wacky caper' sound sometimes, which rather dates the film to my ears.
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King Queen Knave (1972) 4/10
Despite solid cast (David Niven, Gina Lollobrigida + John Moulder-Brown returning after Deep End from a couple years previous) and a Nabokov novel as source material this one is a real dud. The main problem is that it's mostly played as broad comedy and I didn't find any of it funny. Moulder-Brown's role is not altogether different from Deep End, but here he is much dumber and much more irritating. There are noticeable recurring motifs from Deep End and others - water & mirrors play their roles, the sexually aggressive older woman and the odd slightly surreal touch. These are really the only things which keep it recognisable as a Skolimowski film. I haven't read the original book, but I generally love Nabokov and I'm sure in his hands this is a great black comedy - alas in the film the duff comedy aspects bring it down to the level of a badly dated sitcom.
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The Lightship (1985) 6/10
A battle of wills on a boat - Skolimowski returns to the territory of Knife in the Water, but this is much less successful. Robert Duvall hams it up as a Southern gent who is also some sort of criminal on the run with two halfwit cronies and for some reason winds up on Klaus Maria Brandaeur's Lightship (a stationary boat which acts a lighthouse, who knew?).
Klaus and Bob face off, good against evil, with some weirdly flirtatious undertones, as Bob offers a brand of freedom which Klaus doesn't have in his stationary life on his stationary ship. Klaus also has an annoying son in tow (who also provides a crappy voiceover) and tries to stave off accusations of cowardice as he doesn't want to fight Duvall for control of the boat and is more concerned with making sure the light keeps working. It's not a bad film but never really manages to ratchet up the tension that the situation could provide and the dialogue is only sporadically interesting.
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Cztery noce z Anna/Four Nights With Anna (2008) 7/10
For some reason (funding?) Skolimowski made no films from 1991 until his return in 2008 with this one. It's a downbeat, sad film, about a loner who is also something of a voyeur and gets involved in the life of Anna a nurse who lives nearby. It's a well shot film with definite shades of Dekalog.
