Deep End

In 1970, a movie called Deep End was released, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, written by Skolimowski, Boleslaw Sulik, and Jerzy Gruza, with no major stars. This is on the surface a darkly humorous coming of age story for a boy at his first job, but is much deeper than it seems. Once I started to see the deeper layers, I thought this was a phenomenal movie.

The story is about Mike, a boy of about 16 who gets his first job at an English bathhouse. He quickly learns that there are politics in getting tips: the women will tip him for his "company", but he is young and has no interest in them. His fellow coworker Susan is an older beautiful woman that takes him under her wing. He starts to have a thing for her. She somewhat toys with Mike, making him a little jealous of her fling with a coach and also her fiance. He starts to go crazy with his jealousy and begins following her and even causing problems for her. His whole quest is to sleep with Susan, and in the end, he finally succeeds, but when she wants to leave and go home to her fiance, Mike wants her to stay and talk awhile. A freak accident that Mike causes leaves her dead in his arms.

At first I found this movie to be a simple coming of age story: virgin guy wants experienced older woman, and finally gets his wish come true. But if you look deeper, you find a dark comedy. Some of the moments in the movie are very funny, and some probably aren't really meant to be, but they are. But if you look even deeper, you see a deeply psychological drama. Mike for instance starts out as a nice kid who just wants to have a decent job. But the job starts showing him the dark side of life, which helps him transition into a bit of a narcissist. He thinks that Susan belongs with him, and he will do anything to get her. And when he thinks he has her, and she leaves to go back to her fiance, he won't let her leave, then flings the lighting apparatus at her, hitting her in the back of the head, and dies. Susan on the other hand seems to be a nice person at first. You can tell she's a bit of an interesting character immediately, because she seems to enjoy toying with Mike, teasing him. She is a bit of a narcissist herself in that she thinks that everyone wants her, and she toys with everyone until they are interested in her. It just so happens that the person who becomes obsessed with her ends up accidentally killing her.

There is a great scene late in the movie when Mike and Susan finally do their act. Mike is a virgin, and Susan is a bit of a swinger. The camerawork favors Mike's perspective during this scene. It is nothing but closeups on parts of their bodies, but uninteresting parts: hair, hands, mouth, eyes, etc. Nothing revealing. There is also no sound. No music. It is focusing on the small, minute details that only someone who's never experienced it would focus on. Great camerawork.

For me, this movie started off a little slowly, but once I figured out that Susan and Mike are having this emotional dance with each other, I realized where it was going, and I paid attention to the layers of the story. I recommend this movie, but to get it all, one must really watch the emotional interactions between Mike and Susan.

Unfortunately, I can't find a trailer for it. But I found a scene with Mike and Susan, where Susan is toying with Mike, and this is before he realized he really wants her - and more importantly, that he could probably have her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuhMKqwfqVw