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© DR -CUL DE SAC de Roman Polanski (1966) p28
04/10/2013 06:29
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© DR -CUL DE SAC de Roman Polanski (1966) p29
04/10/2013 06:31
This odd black comedy is one of Polanski's most underrated movies.
Author: Infofreak from Perth, Australia
20 July 2003
As 'Cul-de-sac' was Polanski's first movie after his brilliant psychological thriller 'Repulsion' it can't help but be a slight disappointment. Even so, I thought it was an interesting movie and I found it to be much more enjoyable than his next one the totally unfunny spoof 'The Fearless Vampire Killers'. 'Cul-de-sac' is quite difficult to catergorise. In some ways it reminded me of Pinter's 'The Birthday Party' (filmed much later than this but originally staged in the late 1950s), in others of Jack Hill's cult favourite 'Spider Baby' (made earlier but not really released until afterwards), and you could almost see it as prefiguring 'Performance' (old school gangsters meet the new world of the swinging 60s).
*
But really it quite an odd and unique black comedy. It may not be 100% successful, and it does have a few dull spots, but overall it's worth tracking down if you want to see something different. The main reason it succeeds for me is the unusual location of Lindisfarne,England(which I have visited),and the performances of Donald Pleasence, Francoise Dorleac and Lionel Stander. Pleasence was one of Britain's most underrated character actors, the beautiful and doomed Dorleac had appeared alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo in the entertaining thriller 'That Man From Rio', and Standish, who later appeared in movies by Leone and Spielberg, is best remembered as Max, the craggy manservant on the popular 1980s TV show 'Hart To Hart'.
*
All three are excellent in this movie, and their interaction make it fascinating viewing. The supporting cast also includes Jack MacGowran ('The Exorcist') and an early appearance by 1970s sex symbol Jacqueline Bisset. 'Cul-de-sac' is without a doubt Polanski's most underrated movie, and fans of the unusual and the off beat will enjoy it very much. A DVD with a commentary from Polanski would would be wonderful. Any chance?
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© DR -CUL DE SAC de Roman Polanski (1966) p30
04/10/2013 06:34
An average Polanski piece
Author: Jouni Heinonen (jakkiih@hotmail.com) from Finland
19 June 2006
If we think of Roman Polanski's pieces, Nóz w wodzie(1962) is more important, Repulsion (1965)is in my opinion almost the best movie ever made, Rosemary's baby (1968) is more horrifying and Le Locataire (1976) is more interesting, not to talk about Chinatown (1974) etc.
So why should you see Cul-de-Sac? Because it's polanski and it's not crappy. And because of Catherine Deneuve's sister Francoise Dorleac, who died way too early (in 1967, just some time after she co-starred Les Demoiselles de Rochefort with her sister).Once again, the main characters are separated from the world and stranger's are getting in from the outside. The movie is fun, weird and of course a must-see for a Polanski fan.
*
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© DR -CUL DE SAC de Roman Polanski (1966) p31
04/10/2013 06:35
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© DR -CUL DE SAC de Roman Polanski (1966) p32
04/10/2013 06:37
Polanski's Godot (1)
Author: Adam Gai from Jerusalem, Israel
19 August 2012
Samuel Beckett refused to give Polanski the rights to film Waiting for Godot and so the director created with Gerard Brach a script with strong echoes of the famous play (and some by Harold Pinter). A mixture of Gothic horror picture, black comedy, and classic gangsters American pictures, Cul-de-Sac is a parody of all these genres and also a tragedy. Hopelessness, humiliation, perversion - constant motifs of his films -, are presented here below a thick veil of grotesque.
The arrival to the castle of a wounded gangster who tries to be rescued by his boss, and his immediate physical and mental domain of the hostages, untie openly the woman's despise of her husband, the cowardice and vulnerability of him and both dependence on the intruder. The couple breeds chicken and the chicken seem fulfill the function that had the chorus in the Greek tragedy, Polanski is mocking in this way the solemnity of the serious genre that notwithstanding has adopted.
Like in others of his films, the director remits to scenes of his former works and make also homage to some admired creators - Hitchcock's The Birds, for instance (when some birds descend on the courtyard of the castle in the manner of the mentioned picture, but without the expected consequences (another game of Polanski).
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