Director Jerzy Skolimowski’ s exhilarating, edgy, electrifying romp for an eleven-minute time span in luscious, contemporary Warsaw, has a deliciously paralyzing effect on the viewer; the dizzying pace renders one immobile for its fascinating and compelling 83 minutes. Brilliant camerawork and editing bounces from one scenario to another, knowing these disparate individuals are destined to collide; Skolimowski’ s fathomless imagination creates one clever interruption after another; newlyweds, sleazy director, hot dog vender, messenger man, nuns, window washers, painter and would-be thief, strangers, but like a Fischli and Weiss installation, an initial action triggers an unpredictable reaction.
“11 Minutes” capitalizes on the element of chance; “if only I’d left five minutes earlier”, “taken a right, instead of a left”, “skipped the second glass of champagne”; artistically Duchampian, pulsating happenstance transcends the individual; the viewer is left with an awe-inspiring, voyeuristic jaunt into the realm of an implausible but possible situation of “but for the grace of God’” there go I.
FOUR STARS!!!!
Peneflix