Part of Romance Is Dead and Music City Mondays
Fifteen-year-old Mike (John Moulder-Brown) has just been hired at a public bathhouse in London’s East End. His colleague Susan (Jane Asher) is tasked with showing him around. The young man is immediately drawn to this pretty, older redhead. As he discovers a strange atmosphere around the pool and begins to understand an adult world of lustful abandon, Mike is drawn into increasingly tortured, obsessive fantasies involving his beguiling coworker as his desire slowly spirals out of control.
Beneath its veneer of outrageous comedy or lighthearted hazing, DEEP END conceals a cruel drama of adolescence. With a stunning sense of visual composition, Jerzy Skolimowski (EO) follows the wanderings of a boy haunted by the image of an elusive love set to an outstanding soundtrack featuring Cat Stevens and krautrock legends Can.
“It's amazing to think this could have slipped the net for so long: it should be up there with BLOW UP or REPULSION — both outsiders' views of 60s Britain, as is this…. In fact, everything about this singular film – the camerawork, the imagery, the soundtrack — feels vibrant and surprising in a way that makes most modern coming-of-age movies look formulaic and, well, shallow.” —Steve Rose, Guardian “Skolimowski’s relentlessly hyperactive camera mirrors not just the increasing psychological and emotional instability of its main character, but suggests something is amiss all around him as well. DEEP END is as soaked in pheromones and nervous electricity as Mike.” —Jaime N. Christley, Slant Magazine “Ostensibly a saucy, knockabout swimming pool romp, it develops into a surreal dive into the waters of destructive sexuality.” —Ben Nicholson, CineVue
