By In a future installment of The Cult Club, I’ll have to write about an Andrzej Żuławski film. Probably Possession or On the Silver Globe. Żuławski is a Polish filmmaker whose movies are bonkers — jagged, scraggly, unhinged little things. Earlier this year at BAMcinématek (the film wing of the Brooklyn Academy of Music), there was a Żuławski retrospective called “Hysterical Excess,” which is such an appropriate phrase for his work. It’s brimming with that.
The 71-year-old Żuławski is now developing and seucring financing for his first film in 12 years, Matiere Noire aka Dark Matter. The film’s cryptic, noir-tinged plot involves a dead father, an only son dealing with the dead father’s company, a mysterious notebook, the Hadron Collider, and a metaphysical burglary. I can’t really make sense of what’s going on, but I’m willing to let Żuławski drag me through whatever strange pit of hell he wants.
In the gallery is some promotional art for Matiere Noire/Dark Matter. After the cut is a full plot synopsis for the forthcoming film as well as the NSFW trailer for the “Hysterical Excess” retrospective at BAM. It should give you a good taste of the madness that Andrzej Żuławski excels at.
[Via Quiet Earth]
The plot synopsis for Andrzej Żuławski’s Matiere Noire (Dark Matter) via Quiet Earth:
Corti, an important entrepreneur from Lyon, dies in his bed, with his loved ones around him. His only son, Antony, came back to see his father for the last time. For this occasion, he meets again with his forever friend, Raoul, son of one of the closest employees of Corti. Though they’ve been separated for years because of their studies abroad – corporate finance for Antony and nuclear physics for Raoul – those two have kept the same affection and complicity.
While Antony takes in hand the business of his father and tries to win the confidence of his top executives and financial partners, a mysterious notebook left behind by Corti will increasingly puzzle him… Who was really his father? What was he doing in Africa 30 yeas ago with those same men who faithfully remained around him until today? Why did he lead his company into the industrial adventure of Geneva’s Large Hadron Collider? What is this’‘dark matter’ in which he seems to have drowned himself? …
Day after day, Antony feels that his own life is on the edge. He would love to understand. But soon, money is lacking and Corti’s industrial empire must absolutely find cash or die… The only solution imagined by Antony becoming more and more confused is to go back to the roots of gangsterism and organize a burglary.
A fantastic burglary in the great tradition of films noirs…
But a metaphysical burglary…
