Cosmos review – absurdism without the laughs

The final film of the director Andrzej Żuławski – who died in February, best remembered for 1981’s Isabelle Adjani freakout Possession – proves a characteristically eccentric undertaking, adapted from Witold Gombrowicz’s novel set within a mildewing B&B. One half-funny gag: that our writer hero (Jonathan Genet, resistible) is only as dotty as his fellow guests. Yet with all the actors operating some distance off the leash, even the sharper scenes soon clot into an impenetrable layer of gibberish tics. Cultists can claim it as proof Żuławski was doing his own thing until the end, but the film didn’t need releasing so much as sectioning for public safety.