Pokot

This is Poland's entry to the Academy Awards and it was not chosen among the five nominees. An old woman living alone in a farmhouse goes on a mission to stop the areas hunters from killing the wildlife. The culture is one with a long tradition of hunting the deer, wild boar, and especially foxes for their furs. They are skinned alive for their pelts, and it is quite vicious. The woman reports a series of murders of the hunters, and she becomes a pain in the ass to the police with her theories based on astrological charts of the local population. The ending is not what I expected, and this is a really strange movie.

SPOOR (Pokot) was a Competition film at the2017 Berlin film festival. My festival day started with a trip to West Berlin to see this Polish competition entry at the lavish ZOO Palace theater, the most luxurious movie house on Earth at this moment. Agnieszka Holland's SPOOR, (Polish, Czech, Slovak co prod) takes place in a village in Southern Poland near the Czech border. It was (for a change) a very good competition film after a string of losers, with an unusually strong performance by Agnieszka Mandat (64) as Duszejko, the older woman who lives alone with her beloved two dogs, Whitey and Leila. When they disappear mysteriously she sets out on a crusade to stop the murder of animals in this wildlife rich region. The heavy in the film is the local priest..During a church sermon where he is basically defending the right to kill animals on religious grounds she gets up and berates the assembled congregation with the words "How can you listen to this bullshit!" and storms out. A film that Brigitte Bardot will love as will all animal lovers everywhere. Agnieszka Mandat could be a strong contender for an actress Bär in a Berlin competition slate rich with strong feminine roles. Another strong entry in polish director Agnieszka Holland's extremely varied filmography. Ms. Holland, now 68, began her career in Poland as an assistant to Andrzej Wajda then left Poland to flee Communusm and made many landmark in English with top international stars. Holland is arguably the outstanding woman director active in the world today.

A fascinating film and offers a glimpse into post communist Polish society. I don't know much about Poland, I'm an American who has never visited Poland,, but from all that I've read and glean from the last 20 years , the corruption in communism didn't just disappear overnight with a change in government. It seems to be a problem for many Eastern European post communist countries. Highlighted here is not just the indifference and corruption of the police and the political establish meant , but also the horrible way in which wildlife is treated , but also, as a geriatrician, I think discrimination against elderly people is subtle and pronounced, not just in Eastern European countries, but also in the West. The brilliant acting shows the subtle ways in which the concerns of an elderly teacher are ignored, and even ridiculed. As to the anti-hunting bias, I'm not anti-hunting, in fact, hunters in the United States, are often strong conservationists, but I just think you did don't need to kill animals in order to enjoy nature. I used to have when I was young, long ago switched to wildlife photography.

Started really well, building up characters was and connecting them to the story was excellent effort, but... it had those long stretches of "animal right preaching" (which I totally understand) taking away attention. From 4 people watching it, we had two asleep! I am not sure if this was a good movie or not, but I know that the team making it was excellent and professional. I wish the result was more like that!

As an animal activist I should say that this review is a bit biased... nevertheless I think this movie is worth a watch since its beautiful sorroundings and story of love of nature are most endearing.

Thus, if you're interested in a story of someone who suffers from the consequences of corruption and takes justice into their own hands you won't be disappointed. I dare say that, when you finish watching, you'll feel content and fullfiled since the movie's focus - fighting what's bad in society - is overall achieved (I wouldn't put it as a revenge story, more as a cleaning the dirt tale).