I was aware of this film for many years but knew nothing about it, apart from the fact, Polanski directed it. I've always, anyway, been a greater fan of the less lauded Polish director, Jerzy Skolimowski, director of the 1970 classic, Deep End.
Cul De Sac is a comedy without laughs, a suspense film without tension, an allegory without obvious allegorical juxtaposition, it nevertheless, maintains a brooding atmosphere and elicits splendid performances from Donald Pleasance as the wimpish, effete keeper of the castle, Francois Dorleac, his sensual wife of ten months standing and Lionel Stander, as the wounded American gangster entering their quaint, secluded,confined, Northumbrian world. The black and white contours of the coast is matched by the elegance and beauty of Dorleac during her regular,unclothed, associations with the water; she has an aura of vulnerability, more so, when I learnt she died in a car crash a year or so after making this film, aged 25.
Some of the dialogue is piquant, but I liked the scene in which ulcer-suffering Pleasance is forced to drink alcohol by the gun-toting Yank and becomes almost human, thereafter. Not a good advert for Alcoholics Anonymous.
When some interlopers appear, the film loses some of it's claustrophobic edginess, but I enjoyed seeing the late William Franklyn in a cameo, taking Dorleac's home-made hooch nervously to his lips, raising an eyebrow and saying "excellent". He later made his name in TV ads in the UK, drinking tonic water and similar, each time uttering an immortal phrase, hinting at the brand name: "Sch, you know who..." In this case, we all know who is behind this interesting period piece.... Polanski, as if you didn't know.
Cul De Sac is a comedy without laughs, a suspense film without tension, an allegory without obvious allegorical juxtaposition, it nevertheless, maintains a brooding atmosphere and elicits splendid performances from Donald Pleasance as the wimpish, effete keeper of the castle, Francois Dorleac, his sensual wife of ten months standing and Lionel Stander, as the wounded American gangster entering their quaint, secluded,confined, Northumbrian world. The black and white contours of the coast is matched by the elegance and beauty of Dorleac during her regular,unclothed, associations with the water; she has an aura of vulnerability, more so, when I learnt she died in a car crash a year or so after making this film, aged 25.
Some of the dialogue is piquant, but I liked the scene in which ulcer-suffering Pleasance is forced to drink alcohol by the gun-toting Yank and becomes almost human, thereafter. Not a good advert for Alcoholics Anonymous.
When some interlopers appear, the film loses some of it's claustrophobic edginess, but I enjoyed seeing the late William Franklyn in a cameo, taking Dorleac's home-made hooch nervously to his lips, raising an eyebrow and saying "excellent". He later made his name in TV ads in the UK, drinking tonic water and similar, each time uttering an immortal phrase, hinting at the brand name: "Sch, you know who..." In this case, we all know who is behind this interesting period piece.... Polanski, as if you didn't know.