Hands behind a back, bound together by rope: such is the jarring opening image of Skolimowski's invigoratingly confrontational third film, Barrier. Traditional narrative elements are here discarded in favor of the creation of a mood, both romantic and uneasy, drawn from images and scenes that seem simultaneously everyday and utterly nightmarish. A candlelit dinner of snow, eaten next to a busy roadway; a ballroom filled with tuxedo-clad men, dancing with newspaper hats; a radio broadcast of a singing star, who turns out to be the cleaning woman; “romantic impulses still manifest themselves,” says someone, but how? The film ostensibly follows a young man's accidental courtship of a young woman, a tram worker, but at its heart is the barrier between them, between humans, and between generations. “War heroes have their songs,” says a youth, “but what are ours? ‘I'll manage by myself'?” A frenetic jazz score by legendary composer Krzysztof Komeda adds further tumult to this freeform, constantly surprising masterpiece.