The Departure(Le départ)
Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski
Belgium, 1967, French, 85mins, DCP
Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Catherine-Isabelle Duport, Jacqueline Bir
Making his first film outside Poland, Skolimowski takes a spin for an alternatively frenetic and lyrical comedy in Brussels. Playing a hairdresser’s apprentice obsessed with acquiring a Porsche to compete in a rally car race, Jean-Pierre Léaud – fresh from Masculine Feminine with Catherine Duport – charges the film with hyperkinetic agility and dynamism through his manic hysteria and volatile outbursts, captured under Willy Kurant’s active camera and accentuated by Krzysztof Komeda’s striking jazz score. A thrilling wink at the French New Wave’s canonical characterisation of youth in flux, Skolimowski’s Berlinale-Golden-Bear-winner drives the evolution further down the road.
Berlin International Film Festival: Golden Bear for Best Film and UNICRIT Award
