Staff Pick: Deep End

Zach’s Staff Pick

The living drive of cycling, the expectations of fantasy, the blur of boundaries in the wet of a public pool: Jerzy Skolimowski’s masterwork on the vulnerability adolescence, the power relations of sex, and the tragic cost of selfishness– DEEP END (1970), is a unique and extraordinary film.

DEEP END presents a working class Boccaccian fable of heightened humor and romantic dreams, beset by the pain that comes with youth. Stars the incredible Jane Asher (ALFIE, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH) and a wonderfully abstract and buoyant John Moulder Brown.  The film’s action is significantly propelled by music from Can (credited as The Can) and Cat Stevens. There are prescient notes of Hal Ashby, Robert Altman, and echoes of Antonioni and Kenneth Anger. Come out! And discover why DEEP END was one of dearly departed David Lynch’s favorite films.