Two Deaths

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 1995, 102 min
Section: Tribute to Nicolas Roeg

Synopsis

Four friends have dinner together in a luxury villa in Bucharest just after the fall of Ceauşescu’s regime. Fratricidal revolutionary battles are being waged outside in the streets, which occasionally break into the villa and disturb the smooth course of the flamboyant dinner party. Urged by his guests, the host begins to tell the story of his beautiful enigmatic housekeeper, a tale which gradually turns into a terrible confession. As the destructive violence and terror start to penetrate the walls of the house itself, the hidden secrets of the other guests float to the surface, secrets of erotic obsessions and passions which destroy them but also motivate their lives. Unusual for Roeg, the intimacy of Two Deaths is reminiscent of another film confession: Bitter Moon by Roman Polanski. Roeg, however, goes much further in the sophistication of the mutual torment the central couple expose each other to and, above all, in his emphasis of the fragility and vulnerability of the human body. In this respect the film Two Deaths contains shots which are seen only very rarely in a work that does not rank itself as a horror film. The body and soul, like the house, are easy targets which cannot be defended for long. The building is ravaged by military raids from outside, and by the irrepressible force of self-destructive passion from within. The atmosphere of tension, claustrophobia and inevitability, together with the tantalising odour of sensuality, is also deftly built up by the music of one of Hollywood’s leading composers, Hans Zimmer.