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★★★★☆
4 November 2015
A movie review of 11 MINUTES. |
“Everything is perfect,” film director (Richard Dormer)
Into his seventh decade, like Scorsese, director Jerzy Skolimowski is still at the top of his game. Not one for complacency, the opposite, there is a thumping vibrancy to his oeuvre. Eschewing conventional storytelling, 11 MINUTES is a pulsating, almost experimental snapshot of lives. Seemingly disparate and random in the choices we follow, the climax is a deft rug-pull that means a re-watch is inevitable to re-evaluate. There is artistry to the mosaic presented.
Into his seventh decade, like Scorsese, director Jerzy Skolimowski is still at the top of his game. Not one for complacency, the opposite, there is a thumping vibrancy to his oeuvre. Eschewing conventional storytelling, 11 MINUTES is a pulsating, almost experimental snapshot of lives. Seemingly disparate and random in the choices we follow, the climax is a deft rug-pull that means a re-watch is inevitable to re-evaluate. There is artistry to the mosaic presented.
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Robert Altman pioneered the ensemble cast overlap, and influenced the likes of MAGNOLIA and LOVE, ACTUALLY. Here, Skolimowski creates his own beast. Starting at about 5pm on a July day in 2014, in Warsaw, certain segments of the Polish capital are captured. A hot bed of the engagingly illicit is the primary concern; after all who is interested in the mundane?
No names for the protagonists are proffered. Perhaps the anonymity adds to the voyeuristic allure? That job titles are the only initial identifier alludes to the first impression we get on meeting anyone – especially at a party (though by the end, one would not want to be attending this gathering) – the first question asked to get a quick foothold on a strangers’ personality. Of course what really matters are deeds. And the leads’ actions are the interest. Words exchanged are relegated to a distant second place.
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Commencing on a found footage collection introducing some of the players, one was worried that Skolimowski had gone down the route of some of his peers – Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, Renny Harlin – trying to rejuvenate creative mojo by adopting a fad. Post opening credits the now very tired device is thankfully dropped, in favour of the filmmaker’s bravura camerawork. At a lean 81 minutes, even the irrelevant has urgency, given added impetus by the pounding score.
An actress (Pauline Chapko) auditions for a sleazy movie director (Dormer), her jealous husband (Wojciech Mecwaldowski) already bruised from a brawl is not able to trust his thespian wife, a courier (Dawid Ogrodnik) rushes from the bedroom of a different married woman, a released criminal (Andrzej Chyra) serves nuns street food hotdogs, ambulance paramedics battle a hostile man to reach a woman in need of their services, a window cleaner breaks off from his job to have afternoon amour with his partner, etc., etc. Arbitrary, linked only by a moment of geography, 11 MINUTES shares a gripping similarity to MARGARET and THE DAUGHTER: From a distance everyone’s lives appear unremarkable until a microscope is turned on them.
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