Cosmos

The great Polish director Andrzej Zulawski's final film—adapted from a 1965 novel by Witold Gombrowicz—is an absurdist intellectual comedy about two young Frenchmen on vacation in a family-run bed and breakfast in Lisbon. Cosmos has no real discernable plot—law student Witold (Jonathan Genet) grows obsessed with enigmatic signs that he finds during his nature walks and in the patterns of the mold in his room, while his fashion designer buddy Fuchs (Johan Libéreau) is fixated on the maid (Clémentine Pons), especially the curlicue scar on her lip—but the film is full of surreal moments and oddball characters. Sabine Azéma (star of her husband Alain Resnais's films) plays the proprietor of the inn and is ringmaster for the big family dinners, where debates and arguments and screwball conversations play out like the parallel monologues of eccentrics caught up in their own obsessions. Cosmos was Zulawski's first film in 15 years and it is much more playful, like an avant-garde comedy mixed with self-parody and presented in a surreal narrative journey that is purposely mystifying and strange. A minor but fun film from one of the lesser-known auteurs of modern European cinema (Zulawski passed away soon after this film was released), this is a strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)