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Don Juan in Warsaw, not quite the innocent of Byron's poem but redeemed nevertheless for the sake of the postwar generation. A scooter ride has wreckage still in sight, the introductory glimpse of the young doctor (Tadeusz Lomnicki) lingers on the bohemian pad's cracked walls while the latest discarded lover (Wanda Koczeska) paces outside. The boxing ring by the clinic cuts to the raucous crowd at a jazz concert (with a marvelous glimpse of Roman Polanski wrestling with a cello roughly twice his size), both locales are filmed like Viennese storehouses ca. The Third Man. Andrzej Wajda can't resist bulbous visual grandiloquence, though Jerzy Skolimowski's screenplay insists on the intimacy and piquancy of a tango. A tour of sidewalk cafés gives a minute or so of some Polish Juliette Gréco, the spiky gamine (Krystyna Stypulkowska) turns down the sidekick (Zbigniew Cybulski) but accepts the weary lothario as a partner in a night-long psychological duel. The two swig vodka, discuss sparrows and crosswords, crawl under tables, grudgingly reveal dreams. Seduction without disclosing passion is the challenge, "a game stops being amusing when it's only a game." Fissures appear in their jaded masks—he loses his trousers during a bout of strip-matchbox (one piece of clothing per flip), she's down to bra and panties when he decides to play gentleman. "See? There's progress in all fields of life." Wajda's The Clock, or rather Skolimowski's Before Sunrise. A reverse tracking shot down the street welcomes the dawn, the title is recalled: "In ancient times, philosophers would seek treasures and medicines. We innocent sorcerers seek them in order to kill our own hopes." Belmondo and Seberg are concurrent in À bout de souffle. With Kalina Jedrusik, Teresa Szmigielówna, Andrzej Nowakowski, and Slawa Przybylska. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |