Germany / England / USA
Shown in 1970
CREDITS
- dir
-
Jerzy Skolimowski
- prod
-
Helmut Jedele
- scr
-
Jerzy Gruza, Jerzy Skolimowski, Bloeslav Sulik
- cam
-
Charly Steinberger
- cast
-
John Moulder-Brown, Jane Asher, Karl Michael Vogler, Christopher Sandord, Diana Dors
- prod co
-
Maran Film; COKG Kettledrum
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
OTHER
A totally “international” film, shot in Germany by the famous Polish director, Skolimowski, with a predominantly British cast, and partially financed by an American producer. The setting of the film is London, in a public bathhouse, and it must be admitted that Skolimowski has succeeded in convincing us that the atmosphere is authentic. The Newford Baths is a rather grimy, green-tiled underworld where a gamy gym teacher brings his adolescent charges for their weekly swim classes, and his own sexual romp with the tartish young Women’s Attendant. The clientele at the Newford is comprised chiefly of horny ladies and gentlemen of middle years, who indulge their erotic senses in the privacy of their cubicles, reading graffiti-through-steam. Into this environment comes 15-year-old Michael, a Ganymede of gentle spirit and virginal experience, seeking his first job as Men’s Attendant. He is hired, and almost immediately, is attracted to Susan, his co-worker. She is already corrupted by her work, but finds Michael’s sexual purity and touching infatuation amusing, and she decides to play with his emotions. Skolimowski brings to Deep End the peculiar mixture of starkness and visual beauty found in The Barrier and Le Depart, but here, the color helps to define this nether world of desire, where Michael finds it almost impossible to express his emotions in a normal way. Sequence after sequence becomes etched in the memory: Michael and Susan eating chips from a news wrapping, while a man in the swimming pool churns round-about in a kayak; the symbolic Chinese hot-dog vendors asking about mustard; an underwater swim with a life-size, cardboard girl; a prostitute with a broken leg, plying her trade with a set of levers near her bed. Deep End is a masterful dark fantasy, and John Moulder-Brown gives a brilliant performance as Michael, a youth destroyed by the holy grail of his innate nobility.
FACTOID #222
The SFIFF has honored some of cinema’s best lensers with tributes, including James Wong Howe (1974), Gabriel Figueroa (1984), Nestor Alemendros (1986), Ernest Dickerson (1991) and John Alton (1994). Cinematographer Haskell Wexler received a tribute as a featured filmmaker in the New Directors series, when he appeared with his directorial debut, Medium Cool.
