We take a look back at the underappreciated visionary Andrzej Zulawski and his essential movies…
When you think of cinema’s visionaries, plenty of names spring immediately to mind, including Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, David Lean and Zack Snyder (obviously). Great auteurs of the silver screen with an innate ability to tell stories in a way that feels unique to them. They find new and dazzling ways to put across their vision. They break ground, inspire and make works that either grab audiences from the get-go and keep them coming back, or leave a hook that lures you back beyond an initial response closer to derision.
Yet, somehow, some visionary directors have made awe-inspiring pictures but remain off the mainstream radar. They’re the creative dynamos held dear by the cult of the cinephile. For an array of reasons, including courting controversy and seeing films left incomplete or (for a time) banned in key territories, Andrzej Zulawski is one such cinematic behemoth who, at least outside of France, isn’t held in nearly the regard he should be.
Those with a passing knowledge of Zulawski tend to be those who know of his most widely known film, Possession. Some of those have seen it, others know it from out-of-context clips or memes, usually showing Isabelle Adjani’s infamous and incredible subway meltdown. He’s so much more than that, though, and for the uninitiated, here are the essential Andrzej Zulawski films…
The Third Part of the Night
Zulawski’s first feature would lay the groundwork for most of his career – an arthouse, fiercely uncommercial approach and a wanton disregard for the constrictions of conventional narrative structure.
This dark and disturbing psychological horror is almost a precursor to the A24-style horror. Zulawski, but a fresh-faced newbie faced restriction and push back from more seasoned producers, but still managed to craft a film that felt fiercely auteur.
War-torn Poland is the backdrop, with a man whose family is killed by the Gestapo taking up with the resistance. He starts working in a job feeding lice, which is as grim as it sounds (and evidently a real job back in the Second World War). Meanwhile, he’s haunted by visions of his dead son and meets a doppelgänger of his late wife as his mind spirals to madness. The closest English language equivalent that captures this feeling of oddness and spiralling insanity would be Orson Welles’ The Trial (a film so off kilter Welles had to make it in Europe). Zulawski’s film is filled with his trademark visual style, dynamic camera work, long takes and stunning cinematography. It’s an all too underseen film outside of Poland and France, sadly and will get under your skin.
The Devil
Questions had already been raised about Zulawski’s anti-establishment sensibilities in his previous film. The Devil, a bigger-budget folk horror, would court plenty of controversy in Poland. In fact, seen as an anti-communist allegory, it was banned in Poland and Zulawski was briefly exiled, told in no uncertain terms to grab his passport and go… quickly.
The film itself? Well, it’s a sensational work that doubles pretty well with Ken Russell’s The Devils. They veer wildly in content, but both deal with religious horror and their other themes with the inimitable respective styles of their directors. Visually wild and unforgettable. Zulawski would further lean into his penchant for breaking the fourth wall with characters staring out into the audience.
Like The Third Part of the Night, The Devil is being slowly uncovered with thanks to recent HD restorations that make it look even more visually lavish and haunting. It would eventually be reaccepted in Poland after Zulawski was seen favourably back home once again.
The Most Important Thing: Love
Part of Zulawski being welcomed back with open arms stemmed from his time away, when he found solace in France. His previous films played very well there, and he was then given the green light to direct The Most Important Thing: Love, starring Romy Schneider. It was a big hit in France.
A love triangle as seen through Zulawski’s roaming lens and occasionally no holds barred approach to pulling performances. It’s an eclectic and interesting cast, with even Klaus Kinski and his inherent intensity showing up.
Like so many arthouse European dramas around the time, it cranks the intensity up, even beyond what the new Hollywood movement was often doing, outside a few notable exceptions (such as Rowlands/Cassavettes). Schneider’s performance is incredible.
On the Silver Globe
Now, this comes with a caveat. The film was only 80% finished. Having garnered favour and returning to a hero’s welcome in Poland, Zulawski set about giving his answer to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Tarkovsky’s Solaris. An epic, spectacular Sci-fi that could redefine the genre and become inspirational.
However, authorities got wind of some potential subtext lying beneath a tale of settlers searching for a new Earth to start afresh. The film shows a creation and breakdown of social constructions (not unlike a communist regime as depicted).
With 20% left to shoot the film was forcibly shut down with orders for footage, props, costumes and sets to be destroyed. Thankfully, the reels somehow made it and were stored. Over a decade later, with Poland about to move away from communism, Zulawski had permission to seek anything related to the film and try to finish it. That would prove impossible, but he had enough to put together most of his vision, filling in the gaps with a narration explaining what would appear, set over footage of (then) modern Poland.
The result leaves you wondering whether the unique diversions into narration and docu footage help or hinder the film, but what can’t be denied with this opus is how visually spectacular it is. Zulawski was well on his way to making a masterpiece that could be held in regard, at least in the same breath as 2001, or Solaris, or Blade Runner, if not quite on a level. It’s a stunning film and another that has been beautifully restored and upgraded for the HD generation. The costume work in this is astounding, too.
Possession
I love a good film recommendation. Both giving and receiving. It’s wonderful if you suggest a film that falls way outside the box of what someone has seen, and they fall in love with it. Well, as far as Possession, this was a film recommended to me (by my good friend, Mira) that I’d only heard of in passing. At that time, I wasn’t even privy to the clips or memes associated with it.
Now, Possession is a film, whether you like, love or loathe it (this reaction is also understandable), that is unforgettable. You’ll watch and sit in a daze after, wondering just what the hell you’ve seen.
Zulawski dances between arthouse, intense drama, psychological thriller and grotesque body horror. Many of his films were infused with a lot of himself. The Third Part of the Night was partly inspired by his father’s own wartime experiences, and he put much of himself, including his socio-political views, into his subsequent works. Possession is Zulawski unloading a deep trauma (both sides) from his own divorce by making perhaps the most definitive anti-marriage movie ever made.
As Anna (Isabelle Adjani) and Mark (Sam Neill) go through a bitter divorce, their respective mental states crumble, and Anna grows attached to a lover, then a monstrous entity (and lover). There’s an espionage subplot that doesn’t add much, but doesn’t derail the film, and it at least fits with the grim and grey German locations. Neil is superb, treading a constant line between pitiful, sympathetic and repugnant beautifully. If he’s representative of Zulawski himself, he’s pulled no punches there.
As for Adjani, she gives one of the most jaw-dropping and haunting performances ever. If you’ve seen “that” scene independent from the film, go check the whole thing and look at it again within the movie. It’s certainly a show-stopping moment, but the film is full of unforgettable imagery. As Zulawski’s only English-language film (but a French/German production), it’s also no surprise that it’s his most well-travelled. The subway sequence alone has been ripped off so many times by horror filmmakers.
Boris Godounov
Based on the famous opera, this has had a number of iterations over the years, both on stage and screen. As you might expect, Zulawski’s is the one which plays most with convention. It’s an adaptation of a version of the opera, shot as a stage show through much of it, but breaking behind the barriers of the sets, gliding into the realms of the crew and showing the bones behind everything.
I’m not fully clued up on the source material, nor other versions, but reportedly this strays from the material a little, slices out some elements and plays with the chronology. Again, as you might expect, Zulawski to flip the script as it were. What he does deliver feels unique among other operatic movie musicals. Definitely worth seeking out, although it hasn’t had the HD tidy up it richly deserves.
Cosmos
After a 15 year hiatus since his previous film, Fidelity (a somewhat forgettable erotic drama with Sophie Marceau), Zulawski made his final and (as was often the case) divisive film, Cosmos. A novelist visits a guest house with his friend, distracted by a series of odd mysteries and the strange inhabitants there.
Not that Zulawski was a stranger to flights of fancy, or dances with magical realism, but Cosmos is a film that leans more on comedy than many of his most famous works. It’s wild, quirky and for some, frustratingly evasive, prancing from logic and grounding at every turn. Performances are broad and big, and Zulawski seems happy not to go too deep and too dark. He hadn’t lost any of his visual verve, and if the heady leaning into French surrealist humour doesn’t quite tickle you, it may prove disappointing. However, for Zulawski, who sadly died the following year, it’s not a bad film to go out with.
What is your favourite Andrzej Zulawski film? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
