Le depart

Jerzy Skolimowski’s most ‘New Wave’ film, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as a man dreaming of motor-racing stardom.

Skolimowski’s affinity with the French New Wave was at its most apparent in his first non-Polish film, not least because it starred the iconic Jean-Pierre Léaud as a hairdresser’s apprentice dreaming of being a champion racing driver. Steeped in mid-1960s pop culture and scored by the Polish jazz master Krzysztof Komeda, it rivals Richard Lester’s Beatles films for sheer effervescence.