Dom zly

This is an astounding film, bleak, grim, more than gritty and for those of us who were not brought up in an Eastern Bloc country a remarkable insight into the machinations of small town corruption Polish style.

Films like this should be seen by a wider audience, it was a captivating experience to sit and view the inner workings of this elaborate (sometimes overly) story.

There was just too much 'going on' in the story and some of it could have been left on the cutting room floor to give a tighter film, but that is a small critique of what is a disturbing look back at communism at 'street level'

If you like your cinema real...don't miss the opportunity to see this slice of Polish communistic vodka sodden culture.

The Dark House sees a man pack up and leave after the death of his wife. He stumbles across an old farm house where a father and daughter live. This is no simple narrative though. Running parallel to this is the same man taking police through the scene of a suggested crime. Is this man a witness? A suspect? A victim? The film gradually unfolds to reveal his story. This sounds engaging on its own but there is yet another layer. Political aspects may have some control over the police and how they want this case to turn out. The police aren't exactly in the moment, talking about their doctors, having snowball fights, blowing up condoms to hit each other with, or just enjoying the vodka. There's certainly a lot of satire that I probably missed, not being polish, but this is still a well plotted and beautifully shot thriller.

This is very grim, we see lives of poverty and desperation and brutality.

There acting is good, everyone delivers from Srodon as a likable coward to the bullying police officers.

The pace is quite slow, there is a lot of build up since both plot threads are worked out in parallel and we have to wait until both are ready before the pace can increase, this made it hard to watch in the beginning but it's worth persisting.

Both threads are dark and have a few twists.

There is a bit of humour, some drunken humour in the past thread and some more gallows humour in the current time thread.

The ending is very dark and surprising, and has a couple of extra twists.

This movie is telling a story that could happen anywhere - if anywhere is Poland or any other communist country. The way how the things happen will remind you that the human kind has its dark side that comes out way too easily! From my point of view it is one of the most interesting new polish movies, the plot is not obvious - or at least how it goes is not, it has integrity and all the right elements any movie should have. My only complaint would be that there are to many side stories included to the main story. Not all are relevant, and some quite hard to digest and understand.

If you like strong and heavy stuff - that makes you think about the condition of the human kind, you will find some in this movie.

I can recommend this title if you would like to see (or just remind yourself) how the things were done in communist Poland.

I've decided to write this short review when I saw the previous one.

What you need to understand before watching this movie is that it's about difficult and dark times in Polish history - before the Soviet Union collapse, when Poland was under it's heel.

It's not meant to be funny despite some other reviewers. This is a movie about good people making difficult choices, about people without hope and about people trying to make most of bad situation. It shows how ruthless and corrupt the government was and how one couldn't win with it if he tried.

It's not a movie for everyone. Even the younger generations of Polish might have a problem understanding this film as they can't relate to the passed times. But what is shown here was the reality in many countries of former Eastern Block and is true in many others even now.