Essential viewing: five fave films from Jerzy Skolimowski
Alan Bates in The Shout
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Polish film-maker Jerzy Skolimowski (b.1938) hails from the prestigious Lodz film school that spawned Roman Polanksi (for whom Skolimowski wrote the script for his first feature, Knife in the Water), Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Zbigniew Rybczyński, to name just a few.
Like Polanski, Skolimowski experienced the brutal reality of war at a young age. By his twenties he was already a published poet, and displayed interests in boxing and jazz. He released his first feature in 1964 (ingeniously pieced together from various student shorts he’d made at film school), and went on to make several films in Poland, then England during the 1970s. In the 1980s he’d moved to the States, and both directed and acted. His roles seemed to specialise in Russian stereotypes, such as in White Knights (1985) and Eastern Promises (2007).
From 1991-2008 Skolimowski didn’t make any films, instead focussing on painting. Since 2008 his directing career has revived, culminating in last year’s EO which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
1. The Shout (1978)
Alan Bates, Susannah York and John Hurt star in a bizarre, disturbing drama with the mysterious Crossley (Bates) displaying the deadly, eponymous shout he claims he learnt from an Aboriginal shaman. Based on a short story by Robert Graves.
2. Deep End (1970)
A teenage swimming pool attendant becomes obsessed with an older co-worker in the form of Jane Asher. Set in London (but filmed in Munich), it has a soundtrack by Can and Cat Stevens. Surreal and disturbing.
3. Moonlighting (1982)
An engaging autobiographical film, it stars Jeremy Irons as a Polish electrician in charge of three Polish builders to renovate a house in London. When martial law is declared in Poland, Irons decides not to tell his co-workers.
4. Essential Killing (2010)
Largely silent but gripping chase film with Vincent Gallo as an escaped Taliban soldier on the run from his US captors in snowy Polish forests.
5. EO (2022)
A donkey road movie, inspired by Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. Isabelle Huppert* breaks some plates in a cameo role.
There are many other Skolimowski jewels to watch, including Barrier and Le Départ, but these five give a good taste of the wonderfully eccentric, eclectic, idiosyncratic film-maker.
*Does Skolimowski always have a beautiful and/or iconic actress performing cameos in his films? Apart from Huppert, there was Diana Dors in Deep End and Emmanuelle Seigner in Essential Killing.
Previously on Barnflakes
Top 10 Roman Polanski films
Top ten greatest film trilogies