La nostra terra

This film is worth watching primarily for the artistic work. I believe that it would not have been so attractive if it had been made using ordinary techniques. It should be said that the film is Polish, as far as the cast and authors are concerned, but as far as the work on animation and drawing is concerned, it is absolutely Serbian and a lot of people worked on it. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I've been told. Anyway, it deserves to be awarded in every sense, because the idea is fantastic! The topic is always relevant, anywhere, whether in the village or at the court, at that time, and even now.

Let me start of with the fact that the visuals are absolutely stunning. Im still shoked that a movie was made with oil paintings and to know its a polish movie fills my heart with pride. The breathteaking views of polish conutryside really filled my heart with joy and nostalgia. The lighting, colors, and placement of everything in each scene was extremely nicely done and helped deliver the movie through visuals. Accompanied by dynamic, imaginative music it was quite the pleasure to watch.

It was such a raw movie, showing off so much polish culture unfiltered. The beautiful and the ugly. Dancing, music, ordinary life with lingering judgment, envy and hate. I have not personally read the original book so i cannot judge this movie in regards to it but im sure its a really good adaptration and ill definitely give the book a read.

Watching the movie you wonder whose in the right and eventually realize that its no one. All characters are flawed in different ways, and thats whats so beautiful and real about this.

Why didnt i give it 10/10? Well as much as i loved it i dont think i fully connected with its story on a personal level, and at moments i couldn't really wrap my head around the plot.

I'm however really confident about this movie going to the Oscars.

Sometimes you can appreciate the artistry involved in process of filmmaking, but not fully enjoy the experience of watching the actual movie.

This is precisely how I feel after watching the official submission of Poland for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 96th Academy Awards in 2024 titled: 'THE PEASANTS' ('Chlopi').

Synopsis: "Jagna is a young woman determined to forge her own path in a late 19th century Polish village - a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by adherence to colorful traditions and deep-rooted patriarchy."

Back in 2017 another Dutch -Polish production 'Loving Vincent' (story of Vincent Van Gogh) was made, with similar painting technique, roughly by the same Polish team. Which encouraged them to create Polish based story. 'Loving Vincent' received a huge amount of good critiques and was admired for its artistry. With this type of technique comes tremendous amount of paint work as each film frame (in PAL system 24 frames per second) needed to be painted over film footage. The reason why this technique worked in this Dutch production is that the subject of the film was about famous, tragic painter, so stylistically and subject wise there was a artistic coherence.

After watching'THE PEASANTS' I was wondering if this painting technique was not too much of a distraction and couldn't help to wonder if without it this film wasn't better off just having a standard color correction.

To be fully immersed in the story and appreciate the actual acting performances, we watch micro body expressions of the actors, judging quality of their characterization by how well the non verbal cues mix with what they say, so that every micro expression specially on their face and eyes, tells us subconsciously what actor in character things.

In 'THE PEASANTS' as camera moves around the whole picture constantly vibrates, just as it happens during psychedelic trip the colors morph and vibrate. The beauty of psychedelic trip is that they are relatively short and intense. 'THE PEASANTS' feels like a almost 2 hour psychedelic trip, which might leave the audience little nauseated. Constant movement in the frame, can potentially create an uneasy feeling in the viewer.

As much as I wanted to love this film, by the end I was happy I lasted till the end, having moments where I felt disconnected from the experience.

To be fair, It must be said all the performances are very solid and again this film is full of masterful work and yet the technique used feels little gimmicky and to be honest in the day and age of phone apps, which add cartoon or painting correction to the video footage, it isn't anymore that unique

To conclude 'THE PEASANTS' is a truly potentially tragic and emotional story, which in my opinion, due to painting technique looses what makes this story interesting. The emotionality is getting lost, which is such a pity.

I do however salute all the filmmakers for the amount of ground breaking work they have done, it's just for my taste, as well as the Academy (sadly 'THE PEASANTS' wasn't chosen to be nominated) seems to agree with my assessment.

I still do highly recommend it due to its artistic value.

Definitely the best Polish film I've watched this year. I left the cinema in love and i did think about this movie quite a lot. The music rang in my headphones non stop and I replayed the dance scenes in my head probably a thousand times. The costumes, the image of the Polish countryside, references to the Chelmonski's paintings, everything, it just created the most beautiful image that stays with you for a long time. Maybe just i did imagine Jagna to be strong woman, not as tragic, but i like her character as well as the rest. I think the cating was infallible. I highly recommend visiting the cinema for that one! :)

My take is not yet another "tale of young woman breaking bonds and social..." thing. The "young woman" narrative is a red herring, in my opinion. It misses the point. Every charactet in this amazing feat of acting, art, and production is us. We are all "peasants", more or less. That reflects the soul of the early 20th century book by Raymont. From the snarling biddies, to the destructive frustrated son of the rich landowner, to Jagna, all are laboring under the peasant burden of delusion and superstition. Some do so nobly, others make their mission that of violently curating and exorcising a scapegoat.