Review of Success Is the Best Revenge (1984) by Lee M — 03 Jun 2014

"Success Is the Best Revenge" was Skolimowski's follow-up and companion-piece to "Moonlighting." Both films are London-set; both are explicit reactions to the political crisis in Poland and General Jaruzelski's declaration of martial law; and both feature quintessentially English actors playing Poles.

In other respects, however, no two Skolimowski films could be further apart. You could say that on Moonlighting Skolimowski was on his best behaviour: it's a perfectly controlled, evenly toned gem that achieves its aims with the minimum of effects and the maximum of effectiveness. "Success" is another beast entirely. Chronology gets shuffled, any coherent driving narrative is deliberately fragmented, individual scenes can appear abstracted and disconnected from the film as a whole, and distorted and ambient sounds will be brought in and out to obscure snatches of explanatory dialogue. It's tempting to call it a stylistic mess and be done with it. But one wonders if there is some deeper purpose for the film's narrative obliqueness. Unfortunately,I was unable to divine such a purpose.