Rastros

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.

East Europe's quality display in all of its glory. Detail view of the nature is superbly put together. Directors from this part of the world have class and taste.

Storyline tempo was too jerky switching from the opening to the conclusions. The events of revelations seemed to lost its tempo. And the detail of character within is blurred from one unto another. Like a car chase with the same type of car with the same type of color. You cannot grasp who is chasing who...

But overall this movie have landed an arrow in my heart like a cupid of destiny. Bravo

A great movie about a a strong yet gentle character who cannot accept people being cruel to animals or each other. She helps kids and mistreated women apart from her passion: wild life. She gets to know people in depth because she is open to them- never mind how she does it, the key words here are she does! The photography is exceptional too. Great acting! A refreshing movie for those of us who have been watching too many made-up/always-looking-perfect actors in Hollywood movies.

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.

One of Agneiszka Holland's best films, "Spoor" is a kind of ecological thriller-cum-message picture, magnificently shot by Jolanta Dylewska abd Rafal Paradowski in the Kotlina Klodzka region of Poland. Agnieszka Mandat is superb as the middle-aged teacher with a passion for animals and at loggerheads with her neighbours, hunters all; then her neighbours start turning up dead... It's certainly an unusual story, one might even say far-fetched and its ecological message is laid on a bit thick at times but Holland still manages to get considerable mileage out of it making spectacular use of her locations and giving the animals their dues. Perhaps the best thing about the film is that, while its message is clear from the start, it's never pedantic or over-stated and finally it's as a good old-fashioned whodunnit that it really works, helped no end by a superb score from Antoni Lazarkiewicz. Seek this one out.