You perverted little monster.

Deep End

(1970)

Jerzy Skolomowski followed up the "worst film of his career" (the wonderful The Adventures of Gerard) with this outsider's eye tale set in London at the turn of the '70s. Albeit, that most of it was shot in Berlin.

Set in and around a bathhouse, it follows young school leaver John Moulton-Browne's increasing obsession with fellow attendant Jane Asher. She, a good few years older, enjoys teasing him and fuelling his passion. The youthful, fumbling ,rites-of-passage aspect is very familiar, perhaps overly so at times, but Skolomowski brings something more sinister and borderline psychotic (Moulton-Browne is effectively a stalker, if one Asher's character is aware of) to the playfulness and cruel humour.

He has that in common with fellow Pole Roman Polanski (whom Moulton-Browne ever-so slightly resembles). There are elements here of oppressive interiors, obsession and escalation that recall Repulsion and Cul-de-Sac. Elsewhere, the fractured imagery and signposting foreshadow Nic Roeg (the splashes of read, in particular).

The ending is powerful and sudden, but tonally it fits with the trajectory of Moulton-Browne's character (Skolomowski's starting point was purportedly an actual incident which he bases the ending on, from which he worked backwards; he also makes use of an anecdote about someone losing a diamond in the snow).

Both Asher (delectable in a mini skirt, and her collars and cuffs match) and Moulton-Browne (painfully raw and earnest) are excellent, supported by a cast of mostly dubbed Germans (but you'd swear Karl Michael Vogler's dirty old gym teacher could have walked in off a Grange Hill set) and a self-effacing turn by Diana Dors as a patron of the bathhouse who gets off on fantasying over George Best.

The making of documentary gives the impression that, 40 years on, Asher and Moulton-Browne aren't so far removed from their characters. Asher is superior and controlling, Moulton-Browne warm and enthusiastic. The latter looks quite remarkable for a man approaching 60. He's clearly had a nose job in the intervening years, who knows what else. Maybe he just moisturises a lot, but he could pass for 20 years younger.

***1/2

Comments

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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