Movies: Walerian Borowczyk

An old phonograph assembles itself, plays songs on wax drums before self destructing. In many ways The Phonograph is a companion piece to Renaissance, there is nevertheless something quietly affecting about Borowczyk’s final ‘object’ animation....

During a hospital stay in 2001, the Polish painter, sculptor and filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk compiled a handwritten list of the objects and animals that were featured in his films. While he had used both encyclopedias and dictionaries to order chaos...

Kamar, who just arrived at Bassra, falls in love with the young wife of the old Obeid. But, until now, nobody has survived to be able to praise himself for obtaining favors from this beautiful, capricious woman....

Based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant, Borowczyk relates the plight of a servant girl who killed and buried her child in the garden....

An inventor builds a homemade spacecraft, and uses it to have various adventures, including peeping at women, visiting ‘human’ planets, and becoming involved in intergalactic warfare....

Camera operator Noël Véry provides a commentary on footage shot during the making of The Beast....

A short news reel documentary about poster art....

The chance encounter between a rebel devil and a nubile angel....

Semi-documentary exposé of scandalous hunting practices in the Sologne, a wooded area south of Orléans where he shared a house at the time. The film, part tribute to Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939) and its celebrated hunting scene, is nota...

"Theatre of Mr. and Mrs. Kabal" is Walerian Borowczyk’s first feature-length film and his last animated film. It consists of a sequence of loosely connected scenes, much like a vaudeville program, in which Mr. and Mrs. Kabal perform absurd, surreal, ...

Three youths are abandoned on a road by their crazy mother. Suddenly appears a strange woman carrying a placard saying she's a guide. The guide brings the youths with her on an journey in the woods. A journey they will never forget....

Two bored dwarves fight over a cushion....

A witty and eye-opening tour through Borowczyk's own collection of vintage erotica. Originally intended as part of his 'Contes immoraux', it was released first as a separate short, and is therefore marks the turning-point between Borowczyk's career a...

Animated photographs (made with Jan Lenica) with elements of animated cartoon. A display of military drill....

Lucrezia Borgia, accompanied by her husband Giovanni Sforza visits his father, Pope Alexander VI, and his brother, Cardinal Cesare Borgia. The Dominican Hyeronimo Savonarola denounces the dissolute life of the ecclesiastical environment....

An animated film made by Walerian Borowczyk for W.D. & H.O. Wills. A very pompous cigar smoker reminisces about the good old days when the lower classes knew their place and stayed away from cigars meant only for the privileged. However, after he and...

A man seeks for satisfaction from a prostitute working in a revue. He pays for the whole night and discovers a saddening truth about her....

The inhabitants of our region demand the beatification of Thérèse Fl., the pious young girl shamefully raped by a vagabond....

A short film advertising the newspaper Sztandar Młodych (The Banner of Youth), noteworthy for its abstract elements painted directly onto film stock. An attempt at showing the complexity of the world in a capsule, the film reflects the new policy of ...

From Boccaccio's "La précaution inutile". Jean, a rich old merchant, is blessed with a young and beautiful wife. Although Bianca is absolutely faithful, he, tormented by jealousy, accuses her of the worst depravities....