The perfect musical accompaniment: The brilliance of CAN’s ‘Mother Sky’ in ‘Deep End’
There are always movies that slip through the net, their brilliance not given adequate applause. In many cases, however, these movies become cult classics years later, like Deep End, Jerzy Skolimowski’s incredible tale of obsession and tragedy.
The movie was successful upon its release, even earning Jane Asher a Bafta nomination for her role as Susan, but it faded into obscurity over time. Luckily, in 2011, the film re-emerged in cinemas and became available as a dual-edition Blu-ray courtesy of the BFI, who helped restore the film with Bavaria Media. Now Deep End is much easier to find than it was for decades, and over the past 15 years or so, more and more viewers have discovered the joys of this 1970s gem.
It’s a film that instantly captivates viewers with its unique blend of comedy and psychological thrills. It’s easy to become enamoured by the late ‘60s setting of decrepit swimming baths, contrasting Asher’s incredible outfits—white knee-high boots, a yellow trench coat, and various mini dresses. There is an innate grittiness as well in the exploration of a teenage boy’s introduction to the sexual world souring fast, but it’s simultaneously stylish and quintessentially British.
Deep End stars John Moulder Brown as the 15-year-old Mike, who leaves school and gets a job at the local swimming baths where he becomes infatuated with Susan. She is slightly older and engaged, but she revels in his obsession, often flirting with or teasing him, much to his embarrassment and desperate desire for more. At the other end, a mature woman at the swimming baths takes a liking to Mike and assaults him, and the male PE teacher who brings his class of all-female students is soon revealed to be a pervert. Mike soon realises that the adult world is full of corruption, power abuses, and jealousy, and he quickly becomes caught up in it.
There is one scene that feels like the centrepiece of the film, however, which is soundtracked by CAN’s ‘Mother Sky’, a 15-minute-long epic from the German krautrock group. They recorded it specifically for the film, before it appeared on their album Soundtracks, which also contained songs from the movies Deadlock and The Brute. The track plays as Mike goes into central London to essentially stalk Susan and her fiancé, but finds himself unable to get into the cinema without a membership, instead eating countless hot dogs as he bides his time.
He ends up walking the streets of Soho late into the night, spotting a nude cutout of a woman that strikingly resembles Susan, which he swiftly steals. This leads him to a prostitute, whom he visits purely to find some shelter, and the chaos of the seemingly never-ending guitars, which screech and warp over a steady rhythm, conveys the sense of upheaval felt by Mike.
The song drifts in and out of these scenes, sometimes growing louder as Mike walks up and down pavements and searches desperately for Susan, nearly in a state of mania, and other times it quietens to allow the characters to speak, although the strength of the guitars are ever-present. It’s a genius use of music and sound editing within this sequence, mirroring the charge of Mike’s feelings and keeping up the momentum until he eventually confronts Susan on the Tube with the nude cut-out.
If the scene featured anything less upbeat and chaotic, it might not have packed the same punch, but Skolimowski evidently knew how to keep audiences captivated. It’s a criminally underrated film, one that is worth watching for that CAN sequence alone.
