It is laughable that this is being compared to ‘The Usual Suspects’ (which is at least million times better!). This is a pathetic movie, the ending tries to surprise you and it does, because it is so stupid!

Jack Nicholson does a good job, but even his acting cannot hide the fact that this movie stinks. Some comments say that this one is the best Film Noir till date, and I have one word for such reviews: Baloney!

Bottom line: Don’t see it, see ‘The Usual Suspects’ again (and again and again and again….).
Rating: 1 / 5

The film is similar to a play, and the characters even occasionally talk to the audience. Much of the dialogue is in rhyme (in Polish anyway, not in the English subtitles). But it is more than a drama, it is also a comedy. After watching the film more than five times, I still laugh so much I start choking every time it gets to the part where Gajos and Olbrychski are scribing a letter. Interestingly, Roman Polanski plays a leading role in this film, and he even sings.

Rating: 5 / 5

WHEN ANGELS FALL

This is also a short, another student piece by Polanski, dating from 1959, and in colour. Among those appearing in the film are Barbara Kwiatkowska – at that time Polanski’s wife, a film actress later known throughout Europe as Barbara Lass – and Andrzej Kondratiuk, a friend of Polanski’s from the film academy, then a student cameraman and now a director. The film also includes short appearances by some of Polanski’s student friends, for two reasons, I suppose: it kept the production costs down, and apart from that, young people regarded making films as good fun. The role of the electricity meter-reader was played by Kuba Goldberg, who had previously played one of the Two Men And a Wardrobe. The communists forced him to leave Poland, his home, in 1969, and he later became a lecturer at the film academy in Copenhagen.

KNIFE IN THE WATER

Polanski’s first full-length feature film dates from 1962. The screenplay was by the director and Jerzy Skolimowski. For Polanski it was the first full-length film, but for Komeda it was the seventh, and his sixteenth film score in all, if you include all his other for short and medium-length films. Among the musicians on the recording is the Swedish tenor player Bernt Rosengren. Komeda was really taken with Rosengren’s talent, and invited him to take part in the session. Getting agreement for this in the communist Poland of the 1960s was something absolutely unprecedented, but thanks to Komeda’s stubbornness and the goodwill of the head of the KADR film studio, and after many attempts at persuasion in the offices of the Ministry of Art and Culture, the film authorities, and the management of the National Bank, I managed to arrange it. Because, of course, I was my husband’s manager and the producer of the recording, and it was one of my responsibilities to hire musicians and draw up contracts with them. The beautiful solo you can hear on this soundtrack is by that wonderful saxophonist.

(text courtesy of Zofia Komeda and PowerBros)

Rating: 5 / 5

Just a few years ago, I had the chance to see the director’s cut – the original 110-minute (approx?) version. I finally understood why the film had been cut so heavily. The original version sounded overlong and even tiresome to me!

Undoubtedly, the film’s message is a masterpiece. It is about how a professor who thinks himself to be doing the world a favour finally destroys the world – very insightful, very political, and quite a parallel to the situation of a certain government!

However, the problem of the film (original version) is that Polanski tries too hard to provide equal chance of performance for all characters. The innkeeper who hospitalizes the professor and his assistant, and later becomes half-human, half-vampire, appears much more frequently than he should. The excitement of the final escape is simply destroyed by the pointless reappearance of the innkeeper with his mistress in the castle. During the final escape, the professor stops to analyze the species of the bets! This is totally unconvincing! The hunchback is yet another problematic character. By the end, the audience can hardly follow his psychological change. He is sometimes helping the vampires and sometimes helping the humans, but this is very unclear to the audience. Is this bad acting? Or the result of bad direction?

By the time of the film’s release, everyone would think that it was unfair to cut the film without Polanski’s consent. But was it cut because of its imperfection? I wonder. I only know that the trimmed version sounds better to me.
Rating: 3 / 5

This film is so bad it’s not even cliched, yet those who have a taste for heavily endowed women in Edwardian attire will not wag their tongues as I do. Twelve year old boys…pull up a chair. The Fearless Vampire Killers is potentially the crudest film one might stumble into. In fact, it may actually require the inability to walk erect to be amused by it.
Rating: 1 / 5