Deep End
1970 Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
Synopsis
If you can't have the real thing - you do all kinds of unreal things.
The Swinging Sixties are over and the long, grey morning after has only just begun. But there are still eye-opening new experiences in store for wet-behind-the-ears teenager Mike when he takes a job at a rundown London swimming bath. After one of its more mature visitors steamily attempts to take advantage, he gradually wises up to find himself adrift with an increasingly obsessive interest in sassy, self-assured, spoken-for co-worker Susan. Giddily he follows her into the grimy underbelly of Soho for a long dark night of the soul – soundtracked with great intensity by Krautrock legends, Can. Will Mike sabotage Susan’s relationship with her fiancé and get together with her instead?
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Film 30 of The December Project
I hate swimming pools. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've set foot in them as an adult. At first it gave me a depressing shudder to watch a film set in one; I could never quite forget the clamminess, the tepid stink of chlorine, and myopic tiptoeing in the hope of not stepping on those sodden little matted messes of hair and mystery mucilage. Newford Public Baths even has the same flooring as the pool near my old school.
Despite that background, I still certainly picked up Deep End's most un-English simmering sensuality. But what often happens in this erotically charged atmosphere is harrassment by and…
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Deep End is a fascinating, virtuosic study of romantic and sexual obsession set around a London bath house gone entirely to seed. John Moulder Brown plays a 15-year-old school leaver who finds work there and becomes besotted with the free-and-easy redhead (Jane Asher) who shares his duties. Their innocent flirtations escalate until he's chasing her around the London Underground with a monochrome cut-out of her naked body, shouting: "Is this you?!" It begins as a playful, absurdist and almost bawdy comedy - the only film I've seen that shares the feel of My Own Private Idaho, as Diana Dors shouts about George Best whilst rubbing a teenager's head against her boobs - then becomes darker and odder by the minute,…
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Childish fantasy, 'Deep End' is a quite charming oddity about obsession and growing up. It's an unforgettable film - from Skolimowski's snazzy direction (see the club entrance scene) and the plethora of predatory women in the film to the sense thatthere's something here that's not quite right and Asher and Moulder-Brown smouldering turns. Asher is electric and is the main reason that the film has sucha sexy feel. It's a tinderbox of flesh - barely anything on show but waiting to explode in an orgy of sex and violence. Sex is ever present, as it is to a teen boy, and perhaps the films odd nature stems from this. There are serious issues as well - sexual harrassment, sexual development and the question of 'how far is too far?' which is a question that can be deflected on both leads. 'Deep End' is a surprising film - edgy and sweet, realistic and surreal, sexy and closeted.
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"I don't like colour movies and I can hardly think about colour. It really cheapens things for me and there's never been a colour movie I've freaked out over except one, this thing called Deep End, which had really great art direction."
David Lynch said this in an interview with the NME in 1982, so perhaps he has found a couple more colour films he likes since then, and considering he has shot primarily in colour it is quite an odd thing to say. Either way, it is certainly telling that Lynch is such a fan of Deep End. Where Lynch often portrays a very thin veneer of respectibility and utopian American-dreamness in his films, with a flast flowing undercurrent…
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A pile of trash. The main character is really really silly and the great setting, time period, Cat Stevens, and female lead can't make it even close to worth watching. As if "coming of age" needed further proof that it's a pathetic type.
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If you're British and you don't like this movie then you have no heart. This film defines awkward British sexuality, along with more general themes of teenage fantasy and obsession. Shot in a mostly grimy and sometimes surprisingly beautiful manner and with a soundtrack that fits more and more as the film develops.
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I just... no.
This was the most British thing I've ever seen, I waited with held breath for the Queen to make an appearance alas it never came.
The writing in this was just plain awful, the acting was pretty bad.. the only thing that gave it any redeaming quality was the whole "young boy trying to figure himself out" deal it had for a section, other than that it was fairly poor.
Cheerio guv. -
Would probably get four stars or more if this wasn't my least favorite story ever (character falls in love with other character and should give up but OH NOES HE'S GOT THE SEX MADNESS); thank Christ at least the director's in on how fucking pathetic he is, but still. Nonetheless, full of period detail and verve that kept me interested. Is it just me or this whole film ADR'd? Strange.
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An interesting story that could have been considerably better. The acting is weak and this leads to a lack of tension.
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Film 30 of The December Project
I hate swimming pools. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've set foot in them as an adult. At first it gave me a depressing shudder to watch a film set in one; I could never quite forget the clamminess, the tepid stink of chlorine, and myopic tiptoeing in the hope of not stepping on those sodden little matted messes of hair and mystery mucilage. Newford Public Baths even has the same flooring as the pool near my old school.
Despite that background, I still certainly picked up Deep End's most un-English simmering sensuality. But what often happens in this erotically charged atmosphere is harrassment by and…
-
Childish fantasy, 'Deep End' is a quite charming oddity about obsession and growing up. It's an unforgettable film - from Skolimowski's snazzy direction (see the club entrance scene) and the plethora of predatory women in the film to the sense thatthere's something here that's not quite right and Asher and Moulder-Brown smouldering turns. Asher is electric and is the main reason that the film has sucha sexy feel. It's a tinderbox of flesh - barely anything on show but waiting to explode in an orgy of sex and violence. Sex is ever present, as it is to a teen boy, and perhaps the films odd nature stems from this. There are serious issues as well - sexual harrassment, sexual development and the question of 'how far is too far?' which is a question that can be deflected on both leads. 'Deep End' is a surprising film - edgy and sweet, realistic and surreal, sexy and closeted.
-
Deep End is a fascinating, virtuosic study of romantic and sexual obsession set around a London bath house gone entirely to seed. John Moulder Brown plays a 15-year-old school leaver who finds work there and becomes besotted with the free-and-easy redhead (Jane Asher) who shares his duties. Their innocent flirtations escalate until he's chasing her around the London Underground with a monochrome cut-out of her naked body, shouting: "Is this you?!" It begins as a playful, absurdist and almost bawdy comedy - the only film I've seen that shares the feel of My Own Private Idaho, as Diana Dors shouts about George Best whilst rubbing a teenager's head against her boobs - then becomes darker and odder by the minute,…