Cosmos

Fifteen years is quite a long time for an acclaimed director to have his film shown to audiences.However,it is worth the wait as Polish director Andrzej Zulawski has chosen an appropriate film to astonish both his admirers as well as critics.In 'Cosmos' the entire notion of narration is challenged.There is no straight plot and some of the lines uttered by actors might not make much sense to casual viewers. However,there is something gripping in the way actors have performed in a scenario where a lot of strange things are happening.Director Zulawski also pays his tribute to great writers and filmmakers in the form of their names mentioned in dialogs.Cosmos is not a run of the mill film with a clearly defined beginning,middle and an end.This is one reason why it is not everybody's film.Cosmos would appeal to those viewers who want to delve deeper into the idiosyncratic world of Mr.Andrzej Zulawski who is one of the most innovative filmmakers working in the field of cinema.

I can hardly say that I've seen all of Andrzej Zulawski's films, but I think even with a sample size of one it's safe to say the man's oeuvre represents the cinematic equivalent of Expert Mode in videogames. The likes of 'L'important c'est d'aimer' and 'Possession' are rich and sumptuous, bountiful feasts of both plot that's readily discernible and enticing, and artistic flourishes that are flummoxing, let alone exceptional performances and film-making. But if his other works are Expert Mode, where does that leave us with this, the filmmaker's last picture before his death, that seems to take the most far-flung and outrageous proclivities of his storytelling style to new extremes? To be perfectly honest, 'Cosmos' is simply beyond me. There's no doubt in my mind that this wonderfully well made, bearing acting, direction, editing, cinematography, and otherwise craftsmanship that are intense as they present, and seemingly precisely calculated. Everyone involved is to be commended for what they gave of themselves for this production. As to the writing? Well, I congratulate those viewers who are able to in any fashion pick up on what Zulawski was doing here.

To be clear, I don't know how much of 'Cosmos' as we see it purely reflects Witold Gombrowicz's novel, and how much stems from Zulawski's adapted screenplay. This, and the vague detection of some form of narrative, are the only facets of the writing about which I can claim any certainty. Terry Gilliam, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Alejandro Jodorowsky combined could not conjure characters, dialogue, or scene writing more weird, wild, exaggerated, cartoonish, disparate, and downright inscrutable. Amidst it all I see glimmers of something grander, the faint shadow of whatever vision that was intended for this tableau. Such wisps are outnumbered and overwhelmed on all sides by the towering babel that the movie otherwise represents, a perplexing assemblage of bizarrerie that's strung together like a surrealist daisy chain. Well and truly, I just don't know what to make of any of it.

It's well done, whatever "it" is. One can appreciate art without wholly grasping it. On the other hand, it would be appreciated far more if it weren't 100%, consciously impenetrable. Emphasizing the point, I can't tell if the line "He never knew how to finish his novels, nor their meaning" is a plainspoken admission, or a joking tease. Once more, I offer my sincere, wholehearted congratulations to viewers who watch 'Cosmos' and genuinely See it, and Understand. I'm mystified, and admiration of the fundamental labor that went into it only gets one so far.

Andrzej Zulawski called Cosmos "...one of the strangest films I've ever seen in my life." And then he added, "And incidentally, I made it." Or as David Cairns says in his introductory comments for the included video essay, "What the actual f---, you may be thinking, if this has been your first exposure to a film by Andrzej Zulawski, or even if you are a veteran of his demented, ecstatic cinema."

It's complete and utter madness. Characters seemingly on the brink of insanity, or having already slipped over the edge, engage in dialogue and actions that, as a viewer, we assume means something...to THEM. But are they really communicating with each other and with us? Yes, I think so. A form of systematic expounding one would suppose, at times with raw emotions, yet coming across as disconnected and elusive ideas the meaning of which keeps us searching and in the moment. But it's a form of communication nonetheless. It's what it makes us feel, what insights we gain from the whole. And with Cosmos it's all enhanced by some pretty fine cinematography as well.

The nonsensical dialogue, the frenzied performances. He may have slowed down just a bit by the time he made this film but this is trademark, spot-on Zulawski. What he has always given to me is a unique experience. Cosmos is enjoyable madness, very weird, and a beautiful film. This is a fitting final episode in an amazing career unlike any other.

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.

To my mind, while being quintessential Zulawski, thanks also to the film being in French with mostly native actors there are welcome homages to Jacques Rivette (Céline et Julie vont en bateau) and Éric Rohmer, maybe a dod of Resnais and Cocteau even (after all, Zulawski studied cinema in France). Despite the astonishing allure of the lush greenery (filmed in Portugal, with scant sunshine and plenty of wind off the Atlantic) we are force-fed with the antics and dialogues of a wide range of extreme characters who have nothing and everything in common: food, folly, and literature, perversions and obsessions, madness. I am grateful to the insightful comments of those reviewers who spoke less of themselves and more of the film itself, e.g., "the direction is unrelentingly assured." Indeed, a filmic taxonomy of dementia.