Honoured with Special Jury Prize at 72nd Venice Festival, Jerzy Skolimowski again experiments with a movie medium. In Essential Killing (2010) he resigned from dialogues in order to highlight a survival fight of a man (Vincent Gallo) and to allow multiple interpretations. In case of his newest movie, the director plays with thriller genre. For some, it is even a pastiche of Hollywood-style cinema. Is that it or just a failed action film?
Do you sometimes stop the flow of your thoughts about you, your obligations, your constant rush, never ending problems and/or moments of joy? If yes, you should be familiar with the feeling of incredibility when realizing that simultaneously there are thousands of people doing various things in different situations – working, resting, fighting, playing with kids, suffering from depression, committing suicide, etc. But even that thought leads to the consideration if and how many of them are related to me in some way; how amazing are coincidences that happen to us, make us meet each other. Of course, they can be good or dangerous for our future. And that’s, in my opinion, the core thought of Skolimowski’s 11 minutes, which probably some of you would summarise: “well, that’s just life”.
What we have here is a dozen or so characters living in contemporary Warsaw. Most of them have crimes in their auras – Boy is trying to rob a pawnshop, Hot-Dog Vendor (ex-teacher) has been recently released from prison, Girl with a dog probably set her boyfriend’s flat on fire and it looks like Director has got ignoble intentions toward a young actress who he’s interviewing in his penthouse. Skolimowski puts us into the middle of action, which means we’re not getting to know the characters from the beginning, we don’t even get their names. We’re “jumping” into narration but it’s rather easy to recognize everyone’s endeavors, though not always do we get answer about incentives.
The title of Skolimowski’s movie relates to diegetic time of action – we observe what happens during 11 minutes in our characters’ lives (fine Polish cast: Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Andrzej Chyra, Agata Buzek, Jan Nowicki, to name a few). Pace between events is fast and the viewer has confidence that events approach some big final. Maybe it’s not as spectacular as expected (and with too many slow-motion takes) but the very ending of the movie makes clear what should be our all-embracing impression of it.
The author of Essential Killing still has to learn from Hitchcock in terms of suspense and tension, that’s why it’s better to direct one’s thoughts to more reflective side of the movie; just contemplate the intersubjectivity of life, numerous processes an accident consists of, whether God or fate decides about our future — and you’ll get quite intrigued by 11 minutes.
Polish Cinema Review 