http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4oUEqvBJXY&feature=watch-now-button&wide=1
***ROMAN POLANSKI CREATION*** Described by Polanski himself as his best film, Cul-de-sac draws heavily on the traditions of the Theatre of the Absurd and echoes of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in both it’s themes and visual style. A wounded criminal and his dying partner take refuge at a beachfront castle. The owners of the castle, a meek Englishman and his willful French wife, are initially the unwilling hosts to the criminals. Quickly, however, the relationships between the criminal, the wife, and the Englishman begin to shift in humorous and bizarre fashion.
The fact that there isn’t a single likeable character in Cul de Sac does not diminish its artistic value in the least. Ageing, furtively kinky Donald Pleasence is married to sexy young Francoise Dorleac. The couple’s hermitlike tranquility is shattered when wounded gangsters Jack MacGowan and Lionel Stander invade their home and hold them hostage. As Dorleac urges her tremulous husband to do something, the two criminals begin behaving in a fashion that can only inadequately be described as eccentric. Drawing upon two of Polanski’s favorite themes-isolation and latent insanity–Cul de Sac actually improves upon each viewing, assuming that the viewer has the intestinal fortitude to sit through it once.
Bernd Pulch 