Stockholm Film Festival

An odd couple are the focus of this absurd and macabre masterpiece: an elderly man (Donald Pleasance) and a very young woman (Francoise Dorleac) for whom he has left his wife and his safe bourgeois existence. They live in a medieval castle on a tiny island off the English coast. One day a couple of gangsters turn up after a failed robbery, hiding and waiting for their boss, a certain Mr Katelbach. One of them dies of a gunshot wound, the other one violently takes command of the castle and the couple. Soon he just becomes an addition to the couples' cat-and-mouse game of mutual dependence. The oppressed needs the oppressor and vice versa. Violence is finally met by even more coincidental violence, in the fight for self-pity, for humiliation and the hope that someone else will come along and take over - waiting for Katelbach, who never shows up. Is the film a comedy? No, it is too dark and bitter for that. Is it a tragedy? No, it is too comical, in some scenes close to being a farce. Instead it moves in the sphere of Polanski's own bizarre universe, where love-hate motivates people who are left to each other's devices, and their inability in explaining themselves to the surrounding world. This was the third time that Polanski co-operated with scriptwriter Gerard Brach, who the year before Cul-de-sac had written Repulsion. It was a particularly successful collaboration which continued for another six films, the last one being Frantic. Cul-de-sac is Brach's favourite. It also became famous for the extremely long and complicated scene, which had so many retakes -of Francoise Dorleac forced into ice-cold water - that the whole film shoot was almost put on ice.

Orig. titel

Cul-de-sac

Medverkande

Donald Pleasance, Francoise Dorléac, Linoel Stander

Producent

Gene Gutowski, Michael Klinger, Tony Tenser

Manus

Roman Polanski, Gérard Brach

Foto

Gilbert Taylor

Musik

Krzystof Komeda

Talat språk

English

 

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