Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A Masterpiece!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The road to hell is paved with comic situations. This film doesn't seem acted at all, it's more like setting up a camera while things happen, which enhances the atmosphere of aloofness. The actors seem free to improvise - that may or may not really be the case, but their acting seems free of constraint. The blue of the pool, the yellow raincoat and the red paint that spills in the end remind me of Godard's Contempt (1963) which also has a similar plot and ending - it's focused on rejection. The boy actor reminds me of the young Roman Polanski and Jane Asher still looks like a teenager, so her character's immaturity doesn't come across as weird. Legal age doesn't make people mature anyway - that's the point that Diana Dors demonstrates so well while smothering the boy. Now, the question remains - did they really need Burt Kwouk in this film just to sell hot dogs?

Jerzy Skolimowski's cult classic now restored to its former beauty is certainly one to treasure. Most of the film was shot in Munich, though this is very much about Britain in the 70s. Actors like Diana Dors playing a character who fantasises about football while having sex, Jane Asher as a flirty young madam in a mini skirt and good old Burt Kwouk selling hot dogs. Along the way it confirms that many of the best films about Britain (Blow Up, Cul De Sac, The Ruling Class) are made by Johnny Foreigner. With its primary colours, careful compositions and sharply angled photography it doesn't look British. Even the soundtrack is from the Teutonic legend known as Can. It all melds wonderfully to produce a telling snapshot of the period, and a lot more besides

Deep End is so true to Life - for any teenage boy who becomes infatuated with an older (but young and sensual) woman who he then sees romantically with a chauvinistic and nasty man - he wants to 'save' her.But where any of us ordinary young men would have long stopped their pursuance of justice, young Mike here takes things to the very end, fulfilling the dreams of us mere mortals. You know all along that he'll never get the girl, that's never in any doubt, but the madness as is pushes him further into trouble.That Mike's (John Moulder-Brown) 15 and just out of school and his first boss is the gorgeous and sexually aware Jane Asher and his job entails attending to allsorts at some public baths, including some randy older women, no wonder his hormones are all over the place.It all starts out as light-hearted nonsense (the incorrigible Diana Dors scene a real hoot) but gradually gets darker, to a jet black and tragic end. The ending is one of the most profound and well mounted that I've witnessed and every frame of it perfectly staged.In between, we have the fumblings of a sexually naive lad, he who gets his first pay packet and it goes to his head, finding that the bright lights of a (pretend, film was shot in Munich) Soho turn his few pounds to mere pennies as he goes from club to club. But, all he's actually doing is stalking the girl that he works with, as he sees how her 'other', more glamorous life, away from the bleach and rubber gloves at the baths, is both lived - and funded.True, John Moulder-Brown's acting lacks depth, or finesse, but imagine a 15 year old actually in those scenarios. He'd be even more blunt and less eloquent that Mike is in this.As others have said, this is a true little gem of a film. How so much was actually said about human emotion in such a relatively short film is extraordinary. There were a few really good movies around at that time that covered similar-ish ground (Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom", for example) that weren't appreciated fully then, but seen perhaps as novelty voyeuristic films, only for the 'specialist' viewer. And, of course, thanks to the BFI for restoring it to a crystal-clear and beautiful print.

For many years a somewhat obscure and unseen semi-avant garde melodrama,DEEP END has had a recent revival in digitally restored fashion in cinema,DVD and television,and has an undercurrent of strangeness running through it's entire oeuvre.Set in post-swinging 60's London,but an American/West German co-production directed by Polish-born Jerzy Skolimowski mostly filmed in Germany,with an eclectic cast and musical score,a dubious story and related characters.This overall oddness does not necessarily equate to greatness,but DEEP END still nevertheless manages to hold the attention throughout.A decidedly gauche,awkward 15 year old youth,Mike (John Moulder-Brown) starts his first job at a grimy,dilapidated London municipal bathhouse,and falls in love with a beautiful but uninhibited female co-worker,Susan (Jane Asher),a few years older than him.Susan is apparently engaged but uses and exploits other males for her own pleasure,including the hapless Mike himself.The attraction gradually seems to become more mutual,if dangerous.Coming at the end of the optimistic,happy-go-lucky 60's and populated with rather unlikable characters,DEEP END is packed with so much symbolism as to be in peril from drowning in it.The setting of the seedy,crumbling bathhouse is an obvious metaphor for being literally thrown into the deep rather than shallow end of life,with the related problems,frustrations and behaviour on show signifying this.For a while,DEEP END comes across as a familiar but wispily charming essay on the pains of growing up,with an amusing cameo from Diana Dors (who became a better actress as she got into early middle-age),holding Mike to her bosom while mumbling platitudes about football,though it's not long before it all becomes progressively darker,with dubious behaviour from a male swimming instructor (who Susan has a dalliance with) towards young female students,and an increasingly unhealthy relationship between Mike,so wet behind the ears as to be soaking,and the voluptuous Susan.Moulder-Brown is fine as the hopelessly naive adolescent,though as with many teens his character's behaviour and traits often becomes very irritating,while Ms Asher is convincing as his and other males object of desire,outrageously sexy and knowing it,teasing and cajoling as many males as she can muster,mostly for her own entertainment and amusement in the skimpiest clothing imaginable.With all this symbolism (such as Mike stealing a cardboard life size poster of Susan from London's underground) and semi-Freudian obsession,DEEP END has little in the way of plot,and much of the cast are not British but mainland European (mainly German).This sometimes gets in the way of authenticity for the more pessimistic mood of late 60's/early 70's London (not surprising as much of the film was apparently filmed in Munich),and Skolimowski often seems not to have an ear for the English language,with some scenes allowed to ramble with somewhat stilted dubbed and non-dubbed dialogue.There is much use of hand-held camera and other scenes which have an improvised feel,which is not necessarily a bad thing as said moments have a more spontaneous,humorous and natural feel to them.Such locations as the bathhouse and Soho (which features a funny cameo from Burt Kwouk) add to a sense of decline and seediness while observing the dubious behaviour of the main and secondary characters involved,which inevitably leads to the climax in the swimming pool,with the symbolism at it's height as it being empty and drained of water,but there is a twist in store.....With it's dreary,seedy setting and unsympathetic characters,DEEP END could have been utterly disposable,yet it's very style deem it oddly compulsive and curiously watchable,with it's best moments reserved for it's finale with haunting and extraordinary imagery that linger in the mind long afterwards,confirming it's reputation of being a bizarre,rediscovered cult classic.RATING:7 out of 10.