Cul-de-sac (1966)
Directed by Roman Polanski
On the run and in search of help, two wounded gangsters find refuge in the secluded castle of a feeble man and his wife; however, under the point of a gun, nothing is what it seems.
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What critics compared Cul-de-sac to
Its isolated setting is reminiscent of Cul-de-Sac (1966)—a fact that offers some hint to the shape of the story the film finally pieces together.
Polanski co-wrote the strangely unsettling screenplay with Gérard Brach, with whom he subsequently collaborated on Cul-de-sac (66).
Its emphasis on a central setting is cinematic and atmospheric, rather than the theatrical pressure-cooker rationale of Death and the Maiden; indeed, the new film harkens back to that other island movie, Cul-de-sac (in contention with Chinatown as the director’s masterpiece).
It has many antecedents, from the mocking cool sadism of A Clockwork Orange to the pressure-cooker intensity of Peckinpah's Straw Dogs to the house-party torture games of Roman Polanski's 1966 classic, Cul-de-Sac.
It sounds promising enough, especially in the hands of a director like Polanski whose filmography is chock-full of works featuring seemingly normal characters behaving very badly in close confines, including "Repulsion," "Cul-de-Sac," "The Tenant," "Bitter Moon" and "Death and the Maiden," to name but a few.
Polanski’s is “Cul-de-sac.”
CHICAGO – Roman Polanski may not seem to be the first choice for a film about culture clashes in New York City but he has notable experience with dramas with only a few characters in a few locations (“Knife in the Water,” “Cul-de-sac,” “Death and the Maiden”).
Look at his short films, like “Murder” and “Teeth Smile,” both made in 1957, or the subsequent trio of “Knife in the Water,” “Repulsion,” and “Cul-de-Sac,” all sweating with apprehension at new arrivals or existing threats.
Redeeming the carte blanche ticket he earned for Chinatown 's success, Polanski made The Tenant, a masterpiece of anguish that harks back to his earlier mindfucks Cul-de-Sac and Repulsion (in fact, The Tenant is all but a mirror image of Repulsion) while being more substantial than either of them.