Cycle index

The Catamount Killing

dir. Krzysztof Zanussi / USA, West Germany 1974 / 102’

subtitles: Polish and English

retrospective: Krzysztof Zanussi A Plane from Budapest, Anxiety, Attestation, Behind the Wall, Camouflage, Cement and Words, Face to Face, Family Life, Girl and Uhlan, Hipothesis, Holden, Illumination, Imperative, In Full Gallop, Inventory, Krzysztof Zanussi – Essential Conversations, Life As a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, Long Conversation with a Bird, Mountains at Dusk, Persona non grata, Revisit, Spiral, Stop Thief, Students, The Balance, The Bluebeard, The Catamount Killing, The Constant Factor, The Contract, The Death of a Provincial, The Lady with the Ermine, The Lame Devil, The Power of Evil, The Role, The Roof, The Silent Touch, The Structure of Crystal, The Tram to Heaven, The Unapproachable, The Year of Quiet Sun, Time That Passed, Umbrella, Ways in the Night, Wherever You Are, With a Warm Heart, A Woman’s Business, Deceptive Charm Section index

Cast

Horst Buchholz, Ann Wedgeworth, Chip Taylor, Louise Clark, Aleksander Bardini

Film description

Little is known of Mark's past when he arrives at a small town to work as a manager of the local bank. His passion for the somewhat neurotic, resigned Kit will start a series of misfortunes...

This is the first film Zanussi made abroad, in the USA and - what's more - with someone else's screenplay, an adaptation of a novel by James Hardley Chase. Otto Preminger was said to be an unofficial inspiration for this independent production. Zanussi accepted this job, so unlike his typical style, because, as he wrote in his autobiography, he wanted an adventure and to find his way to a broad audience, while also being honest to himself. Toutes proportions gardées, the plot can be associated with motifs from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment - it speaks of a murder in cold blood of a wholly innocent victim and about the need to accept the consequences of one's deeds.

The film was bought by many countries but in Poland it was distributed twenty years after its premiere and was screened at independent cinemas and on TV.

Mirella Napolska