Andrzej Żuławski. Photo by Isabelle Vautier.How does one translate into film the books by Witold Gombrowicz, who ranks among the greatest modernists of the 20th century? Few have actually dared. Whereas Peter Lilienthal’s adaptation for television of Pornografia (Die Sonne angreifen, 1971) has been all but consigned to oblivion, the famed Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski went on a 17-year hiatus following his failed adaptation of Ferdydurke (30 Door Key, 1991). However, the opposite holds true for Andrzej Żuławski, who came out of a 15-year pause to adapt for the screen Gombrowicz’s fourth novel Cosmos (1965), also his last and most complex. Unfortunately, it became a farewell work for Żuławski as well. What kind of cosmos is it? First and foremost, it’s the bizarre microcosm of a boarding house where the young writer Witold (Jonathan Genet) arrives with his friend Fuchs (Johan Libéreau) in tow to finish his novel The Haunted.
- 3/13/2016
- by Boris Nelepo
- MUBI
If there’s any way to synthesize the many pieces that form the bull-in-a-china-shop filmmaking that is Andrzej Żuławski‘s Cosmos, an adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz‘s novel, consider its status as his first feature in fifteen years. Might some sense of long-awaited release account for its why and how — the intensity of its performances, the force of its camera moves, the sharpness in its cuts, the bombast of its emotions? I’m inclined to think so, but it’s possible I’m only proposing this in search of a “what” — what’s going on, what he was thinking, and what we’re meant to take from any and all of it. Answers, if they do come at all, will only gradually present themselves, and they won’t arrive via exposition or, with some exception, clearly stated themes. A filmmaker who values the power of shock, but not necessarily thrills for thrills’ sake,...
- 11/23/2015
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
In Andrzej Zulawski's Cosmos, Sabine Azéma's Madame Woytis welcomes aspiring novelist Witold (Jonathan Genet) and Fuchs (Johan Libéreau) to a family hotel "where Witold is entranced by the beautiful Lena (Victoria Guerra) and intrigued by excitable maid Catherette (Clémentine Pons) who has a deformed mouth," writes Allan Hunter for Screen. "The two men become part of a family where Madame Woytis stops moving when she becomes over-excited and her blundering, radish-loving husband Leon (Jean-François Balmer) talks ceaselessly. There is a barely suppressed hysteria that seems to have permeated the entire edifice." We're collecting early reviews and clips from Locarno. » - David Hudson...
- 8/9/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
In Andrzej Zulawski's Cosmos, Sabine Azéma's Madame Woytis welcomes aspiring novelist Witold (Jonathan Genet) and Fuchs (Johan Libéreau) to a family hotel "where Witold is entranced by the beautiful Lena (Victoria Guerra) and intrigued by excitable maid Catherette (Clémentine Pons) who has a deformed mouth," writes Allan Hunter for Screen. "The two men become part of a family where Madame Woytis stops moving when she becomes over-excited and her blundering, radish-loving husband Leon (Jean-François Balmer) talks ceaselessly. There is a barely suppressed hysteria that seems to have permeated the entire edifice." We're collecting early reviews and clips from Locarno. » - David Hudson...
- 8/9/2015
- Keyframe
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