Although Rysopis clearly shows the amateur/clandestine nature of its creation, it provides an outline of Skolimowski's preoccupations; now it seems like a rough draft for the mature works which followed. (p. 35)

[If the plot] provides the general scheme of the film, its development derives from a movement within this scheme: that of the hero towards a moment of decision about his life…. As [Andrzej] moves from encounter to encounter, the familiar pattern of the journey-movie emerges, but the journey also has something of the form of a search: this progression has since become central to Skolimowski's films. In fact, in Rysopis the search aspect is weaker than in the subsequent films: Andrzej never really convinces us he is very likely to stay. But essentially the form is present. Here, as in the other films, the various stages of the journey/search are determined more by impulse than by careful consideration of the possibilities, but this seems to be Skolimowski's nature. All his heroes seem to live impulsively, reacting spontaneously to events as they present themselves, and his films have a corresponding vitality and freshness. In this respect Rysopis suffers to an extent from its long period of creation, and its vitality is occasionally naively self-advertising … but it has something of the restless energy conveyed so strongly in Walkover and Le Départ.

In presenting a picture of contemporary Poland, Rysopis is, inevitably, more loosely organised and episodic than the later works. It does however convey a sense of city life going on in the background to the film. The locations—Andrzej's attic, the coffee-bar, the shops, the wood yard next to the University—are palpably real…. Also pertinent is the chilling vision of the organs of the 'system': the draftboard; the veterinary clinic; the University…. Above all, however, in Rysopis one remembers the first, dawn exterior; the image of the shadows of the road workers, huge and immobile on a wall, set in contrast with the drunken trio on their way home, squabbling ineffectually with a passer-by. Particularly when one recalls the penchant of the Soviet cinema for uplifting climaxes at dawn, it strikes one as a brilliant opening comment on communist Poland. (pp. 36-8)

[Walkover] from the personal point of view can perhaps best be seen as a projection by Skolimowski to the age at which a boxer becomes concerned that he is no longer young. At the back of his mind one feels that there must have been the thought, that had he not entered films, the problem could have been a particularly personal one.

In contrast to the amateurish appearance of some of the techniques in Rysopis, Walkover strikes one throughout as a highly assured and professional work. It is an intensely physical film, giving an impression of mise-en-scène, driven by a powerful dynamo…. Skolimowski carves cleanly and coolly from the reality of contemporary Poland. The energy of the hero is translated into the energy of the mise-en-scène, but no emotional transfer occurs…. [Behind] the fast tracks and sudden zooms of the camera in Walkover there remains a total objectivity of viewpoint. Indeed, despite the profusion of detail in Walkover, one would say that Skolimowski's concern was with lucidity, and the identical sudden crane which greets both his knockout in the ring and the final announcement of him as a winner underlines the ambiguity of his approach. (pp. 39-40)

By making the time continuous within each sequence, Skolimowski integrates each of these movements with the disparate elements which form the background to the journey. Thus, whilst the camera is at the service of the protagonists, it never ceases to relate them to their environment. Walkover expresses at the same time the internal rhythms of the life of its hero, and the melée of impressions which comprise Skolimowski's vision of his country. (pp. 40-1)

Walkover introduces the theme of the 'personal struggle' into Skolimowski's work, just as Rysopis introduced that of the 'personal journey'. In his two minute recording for Teresa (which she never hears) Andrzej says that he will show her that it is necessary to fight for no matter what until one's last breath. He is not speaking simply as a boxer. Although he fights because boxing is his obsession, because in the ring he is searching for 'the last moment of happiness', equally it is to assert his identity, to prove himself as an individual. It is for much the same reasons that the hero of Barrier gives up his medical course, or Marc in Le Départ feels that he has to win the motor rally: both are struggling against conforming…. The final image of Walkover is … one of defeat…. (pp. 42-3)

It does however seem a less pessimistic ending than that of Rysopis: Andrzej does at least go down fighting…. This is his moment of decision in the film, a much more positive decision than that in Rysopis, and it leads, quite unexpectedly, to the result which provides the title of the film: Wielgosz has not turned up and Andrzej is given a walkover. The title is however ironic….

In Walkover the background emphasis is on the new Poland which is displacing the old: most of the film takes place on the site of a large new industrial development. The choice of such a site has a specific political significance: the development is an example of the sort of heavy industry which the U.S.S.R. insists upon in her satellites for her own benefit, rather than permitting these countries to develop the light industries which would improve their standard of living. The choice thus underlines the powerful and repressive Soviet heritage, which the Poles, in common with their East European neighbours, have been unable to break free from. On the site, however, Skolimowski takes great delight in showing the individual Polish quirks which keep surfacing. (p. 43)

Teresa seems to represent the personal side of the heavy Soviet heritage…. [Skolimowski] has said of Teresa: 'She is a former Stalinist who has learned by heart what she should think and she recites it.' (p. 44)

The cross is a dominant image from Teresa's past which …, at her moment of distress, suddenly looms up before her—like a long forgotten (repressed?) memory. Even though we are not able to be precise about the spirit in which Skolimowski intended the manifestation, we can recognise its validity as a poetic device, resurrecting the spectre of Teresa's religious past. It is not irrelevant that Andrzej's 'mental image' when he is knocked out by Maniek is of Elzbieta Czyzewska, a vivid memory from his past: the cross appears before Teresa at a similar moment of stress (and, in fact, at a similar 'moment of truth'). Lest all this sound a little portentous however, I should add that whatever Skolimowski intended the cross to mean to Teresa, there certainly seems to be a dark humour behind this introduction of it in such a bizarre manner. (pp. 44-5)

Skolimowski's vision of religion in Poland takes the form of a society frozen in the past, with no contact with the outside world. (p. 46)

That this charge arises only obliquely is typical of Skolimowski's method. Walkover is a film in which many facets emerge only on repeated viewings. Even with these viewings, however, elements remain obscure. One suspects that some are simply too indigenous to be grasped by outsiders, but there are others where one has an idea of what Skolimowski is saying, but it seems to be very deviously expressed….

Particularly richly developed in the film, however, is the weaving of past and present. In the characters of his protagonists as well as the character of his country Skolimowski emphasises how, although the new has displaced the old, the heritage of the old lingers on, constantly surfacing and affecting the new. He does this whilst remaining rigorously in the present tense, and with only the minimal disturbance to the narrative flow of the film, so that we have to be constantly alert to the background references which he introduces. (p. 47)

Even more than Walkover, Barrier strikes one by its visual brilliance. Skolimowski has changed emphasis here, subordinating the surface verisimilitude so fundamental to his previous works to create a mise-en-scène with an unreal, almost surrealist/dreamlike atmosphere. There are even sequences which one would describe as 'pure fantasy'; however, lest this be thought of as departing too far from the path of realism, I should emphasise that not only were the stylistic innovations of Barrier all implicit in Walkover, but also that Barrier contains a portrait of contemporary Poland which is no less vivid or valid than that in Walkover…. Whereas in Walkover the 'poetic touches' were intermittent, in Barrier they inform the whole conception of the movie: its images, rhythm, development. Sequences of 'pure fantasy' are blended with stylised visualisations of reality, creating a richly poetic (and homogenous) texture.

In justifying the particular form of this stylisation—the 'dreamlike atmosphere' of the film—two points can be made:

1) It enables Skolimowski to pare away extraneous detail until he arrives at a condensed image which conveys immediately all that he requires…. [The] bleak décor of the pensioners' home in Barrier crystallises in one image Skolimowski's vision of a comfortless, cellular world, sealed off from all life outside…. [The] sequence has an almost nightmarish quality…. The fantasy sequences showing the people running in a continuous circle, circumscribed by a hall of mirrors, have a similar quality: everyone going through the same mindless routine without a flicker of dissent. This is how Skolimowski sees Polish society: with the lives of the people depersonalised and regimented to an extent which is nightmarish.

2) It emphasises the somnambulistic quality of the journey of the student. Having given up his medical course (his one active gesture of protest, though it derives more from frustration) he sets out seemingly without the remotest idea of what he is going to do. (pp. 48-9)

Why the student's journey should be so somnambulistic can I think be seen if we consider his role as a representative Skolimowski hero. It is first of all significant that Skolimowski himself does not play the role…. Remembering that Skolimowski was seven when the war finished, we could say that, just as the hero of Walkover was effectively a projection forward by the director, so the hero of Barrier is a similar projection back. However the student seems to have little in common with the Skolimowski in Andrzej Leszczyc. His dreamy passivity contrasts quite strongly with Andrzej's energetic questioning and he has a childlike naivety and simplicity of response which mark him as someone who is temperamentally altogether different. Certainly he starts out in a determined fashion, but his protest evaporates rapidly once he is on his own. It becomes clear that when the charlady in the restaurant gets up and sings the Skolimowski poem (an electrifying moment), the poem refers to him: his protest (that he is too young to celebrate with the war veterans) having become no more than a 'straightening of the tie'. And just as he is a dead loss as a revolutionary, so his attempt to 'start a new life' gets nowhere. He is, simply, a dreamer.

However, Skolimowski proves to have a great affection for his dreamy hero. He introduces him to the heroine in a spirit of romanticism quite alien to his previous works, and the film acquires a strong positive centre in their growing feeling for one another: she awakens the student from his dreamy state and gives a sense of purpose to his journey…. [For] the first time Skolimowski has presented us with a heroine who is pretty, charming and, above all, warm and responsive….

The title of the film, we are assured, refers specifically to the barrier between generations…. When the student visits his father in the pensioners' home we can see how little communication there is between them…. Yet the non-communication is not just between father and son: the student is an outsider it seems simply because of his age…. [It] is in the restaurant scene that the theme finds its fullest expression. (pp. 49-50)

Although we should not perhaps take the student's bitterness as the last word on the veterans (it derives to a large extent from his own feeling of exclusion), there is a barrier simply because his father's generation is still so preoccupied with the war…. The war has created another barrier: between the men who can celebrate its heroic camaraderie and the women who (no matter for what reason) are left cold by it….

Earlier the girl's attitude to her parents' generation had been more regretful than bitter, as we see from her attitude to the magazine vendor in the restaurant…. In the film, the vendor becomes her symbolic father: it is she who tries to make him aware of his potential: 'Why stoop to this in the prime of life?' But her concern is in vain. By converting the magazines into the paper hat form shown him by the student, the vendor has a sell-out. (p. 51)

Skolimowski's awareness of mortality under the pressures of contemporary living is quite striking. Rysopis and Walkover both contain road accidents, and Barrier and Le Départ each contain a heart-attack in a public place. Only in Barrier however is the heart-attack followed through to its bitter conclusion. Before the girl and the student can reach the ambulance taking the vendor, it moves away: an example of 'the image of separation' which occurs again and again in Skolimowski; here indicating the emphasis placed by the system on efficient despatch rather than human solicitude….

The sudden collapse of the magazine vendor after his success could be seen as a dire warning of what might happen to the student: both are seeking to start a new life. But the former's failure serves more to underline the difference between the generations; the student clearly is more resilient (surviving the slide down the ski slope on his case!). Both attempts to start anew are in fact variations on a basic theme of the movie: that of rebirth, or resurrection. The setting of the film during the Easter period, with the strong emphasis on the ambient religious atmosphere, provides the background to the theme. Most of the people are celebrating Christ's resurrection, but for some there is the dream of a personal 'rebirth'; of starting a new life….

The new life that the student says he wants for himself in the opening sequence shows absolutely no signs of ever happening. One might think that this is because he is so vague, but in fact the development of the film is towards his enlightenment, and consequent rejection of the property-owning ethos. (p. 52)

After the richness and complexity of Walkover and Barrier, Le Départ seems something of a disappointment, though by no means a failure. Primarily it lacks the density of these works, Skolimowski not surprisingly does not have as much to say about Belgium as Poland….

Nevertheless, if Le Départ seems lightweight Skolimowski, it is nonetheless his film. The hero, Marc … is in the tradition of the dissatisfied Skolimowski heroes: a young hairdresser who dreams of becoming a famous rally driver. (p. 56)

[Hands Up!] is a continuation of the other Polish films. The 'hero' is a thirty-five year old doctor who graduated ten years ago: the crucial ten years referred to at the beginning of Barrier. There the student says 'I'm sparing myself ten years surrender of ambition and ideals'; of the hero of Hands Up! Skolimowski says 'He has lost all the ideals he had when he was a young student. His life consists of all the unimportant things surrounding him, and which he constantly replaces to achieve a kind of variation. He gets new cars, new houses, new wives. He is obsessed by owning things …' He also says 'It is my best and most mature film, and it is not funny at all.'…

[If] Polanski came to bear testament to our quirks and neuroses, Skolimowski one hopes will lead us to a heightened awareness of our inner drives and impulses. (pp. 61-2)

Michael Walker, "Jerzy Skolimowski," in Second Wave, edited by Ian Cameron & others (© 1970 by Movie Magazine Limited; reprinted by permission of Movie), Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1970, pp. 34-62.