Un jour sur la plage

Being a great fan of European cinema in the early 60s, I loved Polanski's, Knife in the Water, Repulsion and Cul-de-Sac but was initially very disappointed with the full on colour film, Rosemary's Baby. Having now seen the most impressive A Day At The Beach which should have been released before Rosemary's Baby, I would certainly have been happier back then if the order of release had not been so drastically changed by circumstances. This great little film is much more akin to the director's early b/w features, although this is in colour, and is bleak indeed. Seemingly shot in a single day in the pouring rain on some desolate Danish beach we spend some time with a little girl and her 'uncle' who spends most of the time trying to get another drink. Despicable, though the lead often appears, there is an palpable bond between the two and it is quite startling that when others try to relate to the child, our hero seems peerless. Fascinating, dark and with a brilliant performance from the young girl, this also has some surprisingly horrific sequences (not counting the true horror of Graham Stark as some horrible underling of a gay Peter sellers!). Well worth searching out.

As someone who usually does not like movies soliciting compassion for alcoholics or drug addicts I was surprised how much I liked A Day at the Beach. The title's promise is fulfilled in the best way possible. A young, intelligent alcoholic takes his little niece to a small seaport for a day. The man is most of the time looking for booze or ingesting it, occasionally rendering verbal outbursts which often sound very lucid. The girl is left to her own devices most of the time but fiercely loyal to her uncle.

From the technical side the movie is virtually faultless. Foreground and background are always in very sharp focus, except for two brief episodes with POV shots of the very drunk main character. The drabness of the place (it is always raining or overcast) is occasionally contrasted by bright, vivid colors. It looks all very controlled and there can be no doubt that a true master is behind this picture. The cast is brilliant down to every secondary character. I found Peter Seller's contribution as a fairy unnecessary and superfluous, though.

I watched the DVD release from Odeon Entertainment. There is an informative booklet about the movie, but Roman Polanski's involvement in the actual shooting is not clear. According to the booklet Polanski left the film while the final editing was in progress. Doesn't this mean that the effectively directed the movie? I would not be surprised if this were the case, in my opinion it very much looks like a Polanski movie. Its stunning how timeless his work is!

A Day at the Beach would never have attracted a mass audience, and from the look of it (and the choice of actors) it probably was never meant to be a blockbuster. But everybody who can stand this difficult and rather depressing subject matter (men preferring drugs to other humans) this is a rewarding and aesthetically satisfying movie. It's great that they made it available on DVD.

This very peculiar movie, undoubtedly the most obscure in Roman Polanski's filmography, surfaced from its vault at Facets Multimedia in Chicago for a week's run a number of years ago. I don't believe it had ever been released before, and not too many people saw it in Chicago either. The extremely savvy film buff that I saw A Day at the Beach with hated the movie; but I, perhaps perversely, kind of liked it for its offbeatness and shabby atmosphere. Polanski wrote the screenplay and was originally set to direct this tale of a man wandering through a rundown British seaside resort and encountering odd characters. Although it can't be considered a major or fully successful piece of work, the movie deserves to be available. It continues to nag at my memory in a way that many better films don't. Its "lost" status lends a certain mystique to the film in and of itself, of course; we buffs are always intrigued by the fruit just out of reach.

I saw this film at Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver around 1994/95. The lead character is a pathetic drunk who takes his daughter for a day out. I believe it is set in a Danish seaside town. Certainly northern European of some sort. It is a series of episodes in a search for drinks, and the little girl ends up having to rescue her drunk dad. An allegory of life and the parent/ child relationship, perhaps. Peter Sellers is hilarious as a homosexual stall keeper. The atmosphere is relentlessly bleak, dark, ominous, and finally it rains. Could be depressing if the viewer has a family member similarly afflicted by alcoholism.

Too bad it is not available. Would love to see it again.

Films about alcoholism are never going to be easy to watch, but what makes this film special is that we see the full effects of the selfishness and path to destruction alcoholics do to their loved ones.

If you have ever been in the presence of a drunk, when you are sober yourself, you have probably seen the worst aspect of that person, which can often come across as either boring, bullying, or downright nasty. To the credit of this film and the excellent acting by Mark Burns, all of these characteristics are explored in the film. By the end of the film, your heart goes out to little Winnie (Beatie Edney) who deserves a far better dad, whom she believes is her uncle because of the shame that Bernie (Mark Burns) has brought onto his family.

This film has the otherworldiness that Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory suffers from. It features British actors, talking in English, but the film was done in Denmark. It kind of works in a weird parallel universe sort of way. It is not really important because the story counts more.

Anyone who has kids knows the dreaded feeling of trying to kill a day while finding ways to entertain them. So spending a rainy day at the beach just to get out of the house is something parents can relate to. The cameo of Peter Sellers (credited as A. Queen) and Graham Stark was light relief the film really needed because, from then on, it becomes a catalogue of distressing episodes as Bernie self-destructs.

The scene when the selfish parents join Bernie in the pub and leave the kids in the car says a lot about the 70s. Different times. A different world.

A powerful but sad film. I am glad I caught it on Netflix.