Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 105: Sat Apr 15

Moonlighting (Skolimowski, 1982): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.20pm


This film is also screened on April 9th at BFI Southbank. Full details of the Jerzy Skolimowski season at the cinema can be found here.

Chicago Reader review:
Conceived and shot in the space of a few weeks due to the Solidarity crisis of December 1981, Jerzy Skolimowski’s black comedy is much more than a political tract: it’s a profound, gripping comedy of terror and isolation, oppression and entrapment. Jeremy Irons, in a performance worthy of Chaplin, is the head of a Polish construction crew doing illegal work on a flat in London; when the military coup occurs back home, Irons—the only member of the group who speaks English—must keep it a secret from his men. Though the film is founded on a metaphor, it is never forced or abstract: Skolimowski’s direction is a concrete creative response to these actors in this setting at this time, making full expressive use of the details, gestures, and situations at hand. It is, in short, a film—unimaginable as theater or literature—and very possibly a great one.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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