Roman Polanski - UK 1966 - grotesque - 111min.
Two thugs take refuge after a hit gone wrong, in an isolated manor house (which at high tide is surrounded by water) once owned by a famous writer, now home of a bourgeois couple. One of the criminals is mortally wounded, so surly companion Dickie (Lionel Stander, excellent) to pay to look after him and call their boss to ask for help. Dickie starts off in the pathetic line man of the house, George (Donald Pleasance), which is actually even disparaged by the sensual wife Teresa (Françoise Dorléac). Among the three starts a vicious game of power and balance of forces that results in a final hallucinated.
Among the first film Polanski is the most paradigmatic of his personal style: there appear many of the elements of his previous films (and future), seasoned with a dose of black humor that is the hallmark of the Polish director.
As often happens in his films, the story takes place in an isolated place (a dead end, of course) surrounded by the sea (polanskiane element present in many films), the abstraction of the setting and history is therefore the means through which Polanski describes the psychology of his characters and the ways (sudden, nervous, excessive) with which they interact. Just as it Knife in the Water, everything revolves around a triangle, where the two men "contend" the attention of the woman, object of desire for excellence and therefore tempting, cruel, cold and unreachable (no one "wins" at the end), the film is a moving vortex character (similar to that of the many birds that inhabit the island) looking for something that even they know, trapped in a situation (life itself?) that does not allow an escape from the cul-de-sac (the head of the bandits that never comes).
shot a beautiful B & W that makes the story even more abstract and symbolic, is a great film that combines in one fell swoop many of the advantages of film Polanski.
Attractions.
Rating: 3.5 / 5
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