at the bottom
I watched Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-sac (1966) tonight.
I wouldn’t say that I totally loved it. I felt that it was lacking something to totally pull me into it. Believe it or not, I am able to seperate an artist’s job life to their personal life. Though I understand those who are not able to and thus do not want to support Polanski in any walk of life. This isn’t about him though it’s about the movie because that’s another frightening can of worms (maybe I could get into it later but I would digress.)
The movie starts off with Richard (Dickie) and Albie, two criminals on the run from a robbery. Richard is pushing their broke down car through water with Albie in tow. Albie is bleeding from a gunshot wound. In one of the following scenes, we are introduced to Teresa and George. Teresa is shirtless on top of George.
In a series of events, Richard takes Teresa and George hostage. Albie dies and is buried in their backyard. Conveniently, they live on an island (?) largely isolated from others. The movie goes from hostage situation to the absurd. It plays on the isolation of the character and the toll that the personalities are taking on each other. Dickie develops an odd relationship with the two hostages. They are no longer hostages but strange companions.
There is a scene where Teresa and George’s friends come over to their haven on the island. Dickie mistakes the visitors for people that are supposed to pick him up and locks them in their cellar. However, he comes back and asks, “Why didn’t you tell them people were coming?” Dickie poses as their kept man and does various things around the house for the guests. It is during this time that we see Teresa getting closer with another man.
The relationship between Teresa and George falters throughout the movie. In the beginning we see that they are close but soon there is a rift. George’s “cowardly” or effeminate ways are pitted against Teresa’s promiscuity.
Additionally, her mischievous streak gets pitted against George’s reserved nature. We see George in a dress and makeup at one point during the film and it is clear that Dickie is his direct opposite. Dickie is manly and a thug while George is feminine with an unlikely companion.
Alcohol plays a heavy role in the movie and helps propel the situation even more into the absurd. George doesn’t drink but on Dickie’s insistence her drinks more and gets very drunk. He tells Dickie that he loves Teresa but she is hard to manage. It is here that we learn of what Dickie things of women…they are all useless. I wouldn’t want to reach but being that I don’t trust men I would say Polanski’s thoughts mirror his.
I have to admit the most interesting things I found in this film was how much George’s seemingly feminine nature was pitted against his wife and Dickie. At the end of the film George “mans up” and kills Dickie and from there everything plunges even more into the absurd. Teresa begs him to run away but he does not listen. A car comes up the path to their house and it is the suitor that Teresa was getting close with before. She asks to run away with him while the murder of Dickie has shaken George so much that he cracks.
At the end of the film George ends up alone on his island with a plane that flies by the island going over him. Cul-de-sac deals with isolation in an emotional and physical sense. In French cul-de-sac means “bottom of the sac (or bag)” and it is most common known as a dead end in housing communities. Every character is unfulfilled and unhappy. The thug has lost a partner and died. The married couple’s relationship has broken because of the thug and even though they get out alive they do not get out unbroken. I did not enjoy Cul-de-sac as much as I would have liked but I certainly understood and could appreciate its elements.
love your shotgun 
