Cosmos

Just finished watching this rip-roaring beauty of a film. Crazy intensity throughout somehow quite relaxing too. Very funny at moments because it shows the underneath of a lot of our social interactions - the extended family greeting in each when they all arrive at the cottage by the sea, the "I am annoyed with you" way that Lucien attends to some minor maintenance work.

The spilled peas scene, the moss-ridden family home of Witold, the vomiting priest...yes it is very arty. But it's not pretentious in the least - it is just driven by a crazed zest for life in all its stressed and neurotic forms. Don't worry about following it, just put your feet up and enjoy.

Cosmos starts with two friends trying to get away from it all. One is Witold who has flunked his law exam and the other is Fuchs who has just packed in working for a Parisian fashion house. They head off to some seaside resort to a family run guest house. This family run guest house is from the more bizarre end of the market, the sort that gets very mixed reviews on Trip Adviser. For starters things are slightly awry from the start, with dead birds found hanging and staffed by people who are so emotionally unstable that a Ritalin overdose would, possibly, have little effect.

The backgrounds of the two young men are juxtaposed brilliantly to the mayhem that is going on around them. Witold seems to be a frustrated dilettante and writer who is wont to fall in love and Fuchs is a force of nature who sparkles with a misplaced energy – if such a thing really exists. The increasing madness seems to deliberately challenge any form of acceptable narrative whilst telling stories that will, eventually, add up to the whole.

This will not be a film for everyone; it can be seen as 'art house' or even deliberately annoying, but when you peel back the layers there is so much here that it is actually a celluloid feast. The performances are at once over the top and sensational as well as being sensationalist. Jean-François Balmer as Leon the patriarch of the house is just sublime as is his screen wife - Sabine Azéma. But the real star is writer and director Andrzej Zulawski who sadly died in February. As far as a Swan song could go it would be hard to beat such a piece of original work as this – he will be truly missed. If you like cinema that challenges convention and has its heart firmly planted on its, over acting, sleeve then be prepared for a treat.

Unique film that is not, surprisingly, difficult to watch but certainly impossible to follow in any coherent way. Based upon the absurdist writings of Witold Gombrowicz this is more a test and strain upon the actors than the viewer. It is not just that not very much makes sense in the traditional way but that even the very language is distorted and invented. At first it seems there is something wrong with the sound, the subtitling or your brain but gradually, because the acting is so strong and capable and the direction so unrelentingly assured, we have to simply accept everyone and their actions and words for what they are. Essentially this is at times gibberish but gradually, like in some crazy dreams certain believability envelops one into the whole madhouse before us. It helps that the film always looks good and that even the most seemingly stupid utterance is convincing. When the absurdist movement is seen in the context of the wider world as a political statement and more specifically here as a reaction to the stark grey lies of the Soviet Union, this colourful absurd creation from a Pole is like a flower in the desert. You will be glad to have seen this film even if it has you scratching your head for a while - if not the whole duration!

I didn't realise until long after watching that this was directed by the man behind POSSESSION, one of my all-time favourite horror films. It makes a lot more sense now, especially in terms off the surreal and offbeat atmosphere, but that's not to say I enjoyed the experience this time around. Indeed, I found COSMOS to be completely unwatchable as a film: I felt like the director had erected a huge invisible barrier between myself and the events depicted on screen, so that I was left cut off and inert in the process. It's a family drama writ large, but the decision to have every line of dialogue spoken with unending intensity was, for me, a deal breaker.

Can someone explain to me what that was all about? After watching for about 20 mins,I thought "I'm turning this off...",but i found I couldn't!.This film is weird but brilliant the reason I have given it a 5 is because i was enthralled,by the music,the settings,the emotions shown and the fact i had to watch it to the end!!! This director must be an insane genius!!!