Dwaj ludzie z szafa

Plot outline: two men carrying a wardrobe appear, walking out of the sea. The walk all over town, getting into trouble, being silly, and walking past the odd social atrocity every now and then.

I was surprised when i saw this to learn that Polanski has been around this long. Polanski always seemed to me to exist only in the 70's, when he made that string of cult classics, and downright just great movies, and also when the double tragedy happened to him, of his wife and friends being slayed by the Manson family, and his subsequent being charged for sleeping with a minor, and not surprisingly not being able to face this, after a life filled with tragedy after tragedy (he lived in a ghetto during his childhood, i believe), his finally fleeing the US.

So i was surprised to learn that he had an entire career in Poland before he came to America, the beginning of which was this short, just under eighteen minutes long, which provided an art gallery audience the other week with a rousing good time. He might be pleased to know that the audience were more impressed by his short than with Pabst's Pandora's Box, and to my mind, that's saying something.

Actually, Polanski's short, which came very early in his career, he was only 25, is one of the most fun surrealist shorts i've seen. It has a young person's sense of fun in its absurdity, but also the cynical world view of someone who's been through traumatic events. I'm never quite sure whether proper surrealist art should have a meaning or not, because Dali, a major proponent of such art, often made meaning in his paintings, and there is certainly meaning in the Dali/Bunuel filmic collaborations Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or. Actually, i would hesitate to call this movie more fun than L'Age D'Or, but its definitely lots of fun.

You can see what Roman Polanski looked like in 1958 in this short, since he has a similar cameo to that in chinatown, playing a kid who smashes the hell out of the face of one of the men with the wardrobe.

This has definitely made me want to check out more early Polanski stuff. I hear his first polish feature, Knife in the Water, is fantastic.

Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958, Poland-15min)Yes,it can be a film about intolerance.But it showed not the intolerance about homeless,gays,or different believers.i think it showed the intolerance about everything that was against the communist system. A Polanski friend who studied with him once told about `their'game' during studies.They used to get into the tram and polanski pretend to be very ill,like he was dying.This way he got the seat.Near their stop,when the tram was slowing down,Polanski suddenly recovered said BYE BYE! And jump off the tram.It seemed foolish,but that was actually the way he fought against the system.In this film Polanski played some kind of evil creation,the boss of a local mafia.It was his most typical `character creation',because he played similar roles in other films like A GENERATION(POKOLENIE) directed by his mentor Andrzej Wajda also in KONIEC NOCY(END OF THE NIGHT).Very interesting was Polanski'' short film "`ROZBIJEMY ZAWABE(WE'LL BREAK UP THE PARTY)to make this film he payed the real trouble-makers to bit the party of Lodz Film Academy students and he. just filmed that!,again polanski played the bad boy in the film'NIEWINNI CZARODZIEJE'.He appears there ony a few minutes but he manages to beat the main character of the film! After moving outside Poland ,Polanski abandoned this profile,but made one exception,as you probably remember in CHINATOWN he suddenly appears and knifes Jack Nicholson's nose.in this moment he plays an evil dwarf ,is both scary an funny.

His experience in Polish theatre gave him a lasting love of Absurdism, with its sardonic, existential view of life's futility, and its vicious parodies of the chaotic power games that underpin (and often undermine) social structures.

Polanski was not only interested in this kind of personages,he likes the relantionship between' the master and the servant' The domineering and the repressed ,as we can see in his short film' The Fat and the Lean' (1961, B&W, 15mins) or in features like Knife in the Water (1962); Cul-de-sac (1966);Dance of the Vampires(1967) etc.

Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958)

*** (out of 4)

As the title suggests, two men carry a large wardrobe around the city getting in all sorts of trouble. Polanski shows good timing in the comic moments and his cameo as the gang leader reminded me of a certain scene in Chinatown.

Break Up the Party (1957)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Somewhat amusing short from Polanski has a more interesting history than what's exactly on screen. Polanski threw a party at his school and invited a gang to break it up half way through. That's what we see here.

Teeth Smile (1957)

*** (out of 4)

Another short from Polanski, this one dealing with a peeping tom. Once again the young director shows he would become quite capable of building some nice atmosphere.

Murder (1957)

*** (out of 4)

Roman Polanski's first short film quickly shows a murder taking place. For such a short film (running time wise), the director does a very good job at showing atmosphere and the murder is quite effective as well.

Having studied the films of Roman Polanski thoroughly in the early 70's while taking a ground breaking GCSE O'Level in Film Study, I was lucky enough to take in the early works including Two Men and a Wardrobe. The film starts with the arrival of the two men from the sea as if joining a closed community from the outside world. Along with them they carry their burden, the wardrobe. The film documents their inability to be accepted into a society who's prejudices come to the fore as they are turned away from cafes and shops and eventually leave the society that shuns them. The wardrobe is symbolic of all societies shortcomings, whether it's sexism, homophobia, racism or plain class distinction. This is Polanski's first film and sets his stall out for a career which never hides from controversy, which includes the mock horror of Dance of the Vampires to Repulsion and the brilliant Cul de Sac. His crossing of genres take him past Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hardy's Tess, but most ardent fans return to the earlier work. Any one who enjoys Two men and a wardrobe should search out Knife In The Water before they return to his Hollywood days.

I saw this Roman Polanksi short on the Criterion collection DVD set, and it's definitely one of my favorites of his. It shares a lot with silent comedy, but it's a little more peculiar within its own conventional quirkiness. It's all about two men, and a wardrobe, as the title all too blatantly makes clear. But what ends up being surprising, funny, and even touching to an extent is where the wardrobe gets taken around to. They can't seem to get it really anywhere, and the destination of the wardrobe seems to be undetermined. It's really all a big excuse to showcase a mixture of silent-film comedy with an underlying message that could be read into. What's it like to bring along something or someone that is just very out of place? This becomes all the more evident as the two men try to rest it down at some places, only to find they have to take it back up again and keep walking. I loved the bits of business that happened, but even just as much the light whimsy that's given to such a strange scene. What's more surreal than two men carrying a wardrobe along a beach? And the music by the great composer (who's best work is in Knife in the Water) Komeda, gives the picture just that perfect quality that lends itself to being memorable still. It's 14 minutes of cinematic bliss for Polanski fans, and for a student film it's got a genuine lot of creativity, humor, and a point that is not lost amid the tact of entertaining to no end.