Wino truskawkowe

I liked "Wino Truskawkowe" (Strawberry Wine) because I spent part of my life in a small provincial town on the Polish-Ukrainian border, so for me it was like a journey into my past. The film has no clearly defined plot, or, in other words, not much happens in it. Andrzej (Jiri Machacek), a thirty-year-old policeman from Warsaw, arrives in the fictional town of Zlobiska, located on the Polish-Slovak border. He hopes to start a new life here and forget about the old one, which ended with the loss of his wife and daughter. Crime in Zlobiska is almost non-existent, apart from drunken brawls in a pub and illegal felling of firewood. Therefore, the new policeman's main task becomes patrolling the area on his service bicycle, which is falling apart. Over time, Andrzej gets to know the local residents better and their favorite pastime: drinking a local drink called strawberry wine, either in groups or alone. He also catches the eye of a local beauty-Lubica (Zuzana Fialova) from Slovakia, but Lubica marries Edek (Cezary Kosinski), a thick-skinned upstart and owner of several local businesses. Andrzej, however, has no time to dwell on his disappointment in love, because a murder is committed in the town. But "Strawberry Wine" is not a detective story, so it does not pay attention to solving the mystery. The film is in fact about the atmosphere of the small provincial border town, and I think that you need to like such atmospheres a little bit too to fully appreciate this movie. The participation of the popular Czech actor Jiri Machacek and Slovak actress Zuzana Fialova adds some more flavor and authenticity to the picture. From the Polish side, I liked the performances of Maciej Stuhr and Marian Dziedziel.