The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising Gallo's performance. The film won several accolades, including the Special Jury Prize at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, while Gallo also won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor.
Synopsis
An Arab is captured in the desert after attacking U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and then tortured and brutalized in a secret detention center. He finds himself transported to Poland, along with other prisoners. He manages to escape into the vast frozen woodland, a world away from the home he knew. In order to survive, he kills some of those who stray into his path and forages for food both from nature and from those he encounters. A woman gives him shelter, treats his wounds and feeds him before sending him back out into the wilderness. He departs on a white horse and, as the first shoots of spring are seen through the snow, appears to die.
Essential Killing was shot in Israel, Poland, and Norway from December 2009 through to February 2010. The film saw Jerzy Skolimowski reunite with Jeremy Thomas, who produced his feature The Shout in 1978, which went on to win the Grand Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.
Skolimowski had been searching to replicate the conditions of his previous film, Four Nights with Anna, most of which was filmed near his home in the Polish Masurian forests. He had heard of rumored (and later revealed[2]) CIA use of the nearby Szymany Airfield for flights carrying prisoners from the Middle East. Subsequently, Skolimowski skidded off the road during winter while driving a four-wheel drive vehicle. Noticing he was two kilometers from Szymany, it occurred to him that the same could easily happen to a prisoner transport and, from this, he found the initial inspiration for the Essential Killing scenario.[3]
He shared a draft script with Jeremy Thomas who encouraged him to think beyond the modest local production Skolimowski had initially envisioned and the project grew, with Thomas as an executive producer, into a multi-national coproduction made under challenging circumstances: "In general, the working conditions were very difficult. Most of the movie was filmed at −35° in the high mountains, where you can not get even with a Snowcat. We had to practically climb to the set: the entire crew has suffered much about the situation, it was certainly the most difficult film I ever did. Vincent Gallo has had the most thankless task of all, having to run barefoot in the snow at those temperatures."[4]
Aware of the potential political overtones of the film, Skolimowski initially nearly dismissed the project as being "too political",[5] he strove to make it non-political: "The political aspects of the situation didn't interest me: to me politics is a dirty game and I don't want to voice my opinions. What is important is that the man who runs away is returning to the state of a wild animal, who has to kill in order to survive."[6]
The film is deliberately non-specific as to locations: "I don't even say whether the film starts in Afghanistan, Iraq or maybe some other place, whether it's an American military base, where the prisoners are kept, whether it's situated in any of those countries. I don't say whether the plane which is landing somewhere in Europe is really landing in Szymany, in Poland."[3]
As was also true with his protagonist's identity: "There is something in the facial features of Vincent Gallo that is difficult to identify. Nobody knows where he is from. I was hoping that even if Vincent would not be perceived as a native Arab or a Muslim, he would still be the 'different' one, not someone from here, not someone from there. Besides, it could be someone like John Walker Lindh, the famous Californian who became a Taliban member and joined Osama bin Laden's forces."[7]
This enigmatic quality is furthered by the fact that the protagonist does not utter a single word during the course of the movie. Moreover, while some characters are named in the credits, no names are used in the film itself.
Reception
The film received generally positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 77% from 52 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2 out of 10. The site's critic consensus reads, "Driven by a uniquely stark mood and propulsive direction, Essential Killing excels due to an unrelentingly visceral performance from Vincent Gallo."[8]
Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3/4 stars, praising Skolimowski's storytelling, as well as Gallo's lead performance.[9]
Festivals and awards
Director Skolimowski with Essential Killing's prizes at the 67th Venice International Film Festival
Essential Killing received its world premiere In Competition on September 6, 2010 at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. At the closing ceremony on 11 September 2010, the film won the Special Jury Prize, and Best Actor (the Volpi Cup), for Vincent Gallo's wordless performance as a Muslim insurgent,[10][11] in addition to the CinemAvvenire Award for Best Film In Competition (voted by a non-statutory youth jury).[12] Gallo was not present to receive his award, which was accepted on his behalf by Skolimowski, who urged the actor to come out of hiding in the audience and take the stage. It was the first time in the Festival's history that two major awards had been bestowed on a single film. At a press conference, Jury President Quentin Tarantino revealed that he had asked Festival head Marco Mueller to break the rules in order to honor the film, a change that will carry on into future editions of the Festival.[12]
The history of cinema in Poland is almost as long as the history of cinematography, and it has universally recognized achievements, even though Polish films tend to be less commercially available than films from several other European nations.
Vincent Gallo is an American actor, filmmaker, and musician. He has won several accolades, including a Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and has been nominated for numerous more, including the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, and the Bronze Horse.
Vincent Lindon is a French actor and filmmaker. For his role in the film The Measure of a Man (2015), Lindon won Best Actor at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Best Actor at the 41st César Awards and the IFFI Best Actor Award (Male) at the 46th International Film Festival of India.
Jerzy Skolimowski is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist, actor and painter. Beginning as a screenwriter for Andrzej Wajda's Innocent Sorcerers (1960), Skolimowski has made more than twenty films since his directorial debut The Menacing Eye (1960). In 1967 he was awarded the Golden Bear prize for his Belgian film The Departure (1967). Among his other notable films is Deep End (1970), starring Jane Asher and John Moulder Brown.
Jeremy Jack Thomas, CBE is a British film producer, founder and chairman of Recorded Picture Company. He produced Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2006 he received a European Film Award for Outstanding European Achievement in World Cinema. His father was director Ralph Thomas, while his uncle Gerald Thomas directed all of the films in the Carry On franchise.
Paweł Jan Mykietyn is a Polish award-winning composer and clarinetist.
Recorded Picture Company is a British film production company founded in 1974 by producer Jeremy Thomas.
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The 17th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 23 June to 4 July 1967.
Promises Written in Water is a 2010 experimental drama film written, directed, edited, and produced by Vincent Gallo. The film stars Gallo, alongside Delfine Bafort, Sage Stallone, Lisa Love, and Hope Tomaselli.
The 67th annual Venice International Film Festival held in Venice, Italy, took place from 1 to 11 September 2010. American film director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino was the head of the Jury. The opening film of the festival was Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, and the closing film was Julie Taymor's The Tempest. John Woo was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement prior to the start of the Festival.
David Price is an American film and television actor and musician who lives and works in Poland.
The 42nd annual Venice International Film Festival was held on 26 August to 6 September 1985.
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The 72nd annual Venice International Film Festival took place from 2 to 12 September 2015. Alfonso Cuarón served as the president of the jury for the main competition. A restored version of Federico Fellini's film Amarcord was shown at the festival. The Venezuelan film From Afar by Lorenzo Vigas won the Golden Lion award.
The 73rd annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 31 August to 10 September 2016.
The 75th annual Cannes Film Festival is a film festival that took place from 17 to 28 May 2022. The festival featured a tribute to actor Tom Cruise, whose film Top Gun: Maverick premiered at the festival and where the actor was awarded an Honorary Palme d'Or on short notice. The official poster for the festival was designed as a homage to The Truman Show (1998).
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