Seeing 'Barrier' (screened as part of a series of 'lost' films), I was left lamenting the general unavailability of Central/Eastern European cinema in the West, for this film rivals the best productions of the French and Italian New Wave. It combines the breeziness of early Godard - photogenic youths talking, walking - and the luminously austere monochrome visual composition of Antonioni, with an additional air, dream-like, anxious, almost threatening, of what might be called surrealism.
Needless to say, plotting is not the focus, as the film follows the aimless wanderings of an alienated young man, struggling to define his own existence in the apparent void of post-war Poland. In the deceptive opening shot, unidentified wrists appear helplessly tied behind an unidentified back, a scene of torture that metamorphoses into student boredom. Crowds rush through empty spaces, to a soundtrack that veers from jazz to choral hymns; a tram moves slowly through the landscape, driven by a similarly lost young woman; magazines are turned into paper hats for an impromptu party in a restaurant; a poster encouraging blood donation recurs, its beckoning finger indicative of the inescapable state bureaucracy.
Despite its frequently languorous pace, 'Barrier' clocks in at just over 80 minutes, yet achieves something greater than many films do in twice that time. This ought to be remembered as one of the major films of the 60s; perhaps it is in Poland. Skolimowski, like his more famous contemporary Roman Polanski, ended up leaving his homeland to make films abroad, but this earlier work is presumably the creative pinnacle.
Needless to say, plotting is not the focus, as the film follows the aimless wanderings of an alienated young man, struggling to define his own existence in the apparent void of post-war Poland. In the deceptive opening shot, unidentified wrists appear helplessly tied behind an unidentified back, a scene of torture that metamorphoses into student boredom. Crowds rush through empty spaces, to a soundtrack that veers from jazz to choral hymns; a tram moves slowly through the landscape, driven by a similarly lost young woman; magazines are turned into paper hats for an impromptu party in a restaurant; a poster encouraging blood donation recurs, its beckoning finger indicative of the inescapable state bureaucracy.
Despite its frequently languorous pace, 'Barrier' clocks in at just over 80 minutes, yet achieves something greater than many films do in twice that time. This ought to be remembered as one of the major films of the 60s; perhaps it is in Poland. Skolimowski, like his more famous contemporary Roman Polanski, ended up leaving his homeland to make films abroad, but this earlier work is presumably the creative pinnacle.