Wonderwall (1968) 75m
This 60s 'head' movie flopped when it opened in theaters and would have vanished into obscurity had it not been for the instrumental soundtrack by George Harrison which kept it known for several years (a re-edited version, including a restored opening track by Harrison, was released in cinemas three decades later). In keeping with the Beatles connections, Dutch design group The Fool (who also painted the wondrous wall on the Apple Boutique building) was hired to create artwork and fashions for the film. WONDERWALL also has writer Gerard Brach (a longtime favorite of Polanski) and actress/singer Jane Birkin on board to help it earn cult status.
Jack MacGowran stars as a mousy professor (coincidentally, he had played a professor in Polanski's/Brach's THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS the previous year) who analyzes water samples and lives in a cramped apartment which looks like it is made up mostly of walls. The monotony of his daily routine changes when he discovers a small hole through which he can peer into the apartment (a great set!) of neighbor Birkin. The images he sees intrigue him and soon all his time is spent watching the room next door. WONDERWALL is less concerned with a story than it is about an event and observes it with as much detachment as MacGowran studies the bacteria under his microscope. The characters are as two-dimensional as the wall that separates them, their only purpose being to play out the film-makers' ideas. But if this is so, then what is the idea being conveyed in WONDERWALL, if any? Is it that old 60s saw that we all build barriers around ourselves that need to be broken to attain total freedom? Does it suggest that drugs can enlighten one's consciousness? (one character, who appears in a fantasy sequence as 'LSD' is quite happy to discover that MacGowran has sugar cubes he can borrow). I don't think filmgoers need to dig for a message to endorse WONDERWALL - it's enough that the film was pretty much overlooked in the era it was made and the cultural capital invested in it years later reclaimed it iconographically. In other words, the main reason to see WONDERWALL 'now' is because it is a film that could only have been made 'then'.
That's the extent of my affection for WONDERWALL, but I would have preferred to see the film go further than it does. Why not let MacGowran demolish the wall with a vengeance so he can launch himself into the alternate universe he sees behind it? In spite of its trippy feel, the basis of the storyline is surprisingly conservative. MacGowran's visions look like photo shoots, which don't seem out of place when you remember that Birkin's character is a fashion model. In fact, the whole thing is more than likely hallucination on his behalf. Even something like a small hole in a wall becomes an avenue of escape from his dingy apartment - through it he hears music, inhales dope and entertains all manner of fantasies. The early PSYCHO reference (stuffed birds, the appearance of 'Mother", and a guilty MacGowran crouched at the peephole spying on a girl) serves little point unless it's meant to tip us off that MacGowran is unhinged from the outset. Interestingly, because what MacGowran sees is fanciful we don't think of him as a voyeur. And besides, we don't really see him getting any gratification - at the end of the film he's just where he was at the beginning, making the whole exercise seem pointless. I think, however, that like any scientist (quantum physicists excluded) MacGowran's character knows that to achieve true results he is permitted only to observe, and nothing more. At the point in the story when he finally stops viewing and starts interfering, the consequences are significant. In short, he has broken a precept that has been fundamental to his work routine - in fact, his life - and that is enough to create some form of liberation, even if it is one that can't be seen outwardly. It might not be our idea of a happy ending, but it's good enough for him.
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