A student: short films by Polanski

Roman Polanski was a student when he filmed a series of short films as coursework for his school of cinema in Poland. It was 1957 and later. He was just 24, and his ideas were right there. I just watched these shorts from a DVD a friend lent me, together with his first feature film: Knife in the Water. I loved the movie, but I enjoyed the shorts even more. The beauty is they are *all* on YouTube! I love YouTube…

Take his very first assignment (I can’t believe it, an assignment done by Polanski himself, and what an assignment!): A murderer.
You need no time at all to tell a story, and as black as story as possible. Watch.

Roman Polanski A Murderer [Morderstwo] 1957

Now enjoy the irony in Teeth Smile, a very short story on a peeping tom who watches a beautiful girl from a window while she is in the bathroom. Then, somebody appears, so he has to withdraw. Thus, when able to come back to the window…

Roman Polanski “Teeth Smile” [Usmiech Zebiczny] 1957

Last, one of my favorites of his surrealism. The Lamp, a perfect Gothic story of dolls and a lamp.

Polanski The Lamp [Lampa] 1959

All the shorts are without dialogue, for Polanski himself believes the “proper form” of a short film is dialogue-less.