A lot of running time in this unusually short film is wasted in rather meaningless scenes. At the very beginning we see the main character moving around her apartment apparently distributing her laundry without any clue to why this is so important that we get to see it. It is followed by a sequence of scenes where the character walks through the frame rather slowly. Thinking about it I imagine the director giving the order "don't walk too fast, we want this to be a feature film." And so it continues. We get very little entertaining moments, only at the library in her discussions with a librarian and her confrontations with her aunt. In between, there are long moments with fingers fingering letters, all done in a rather childish way. And we can read subtitles bearing translations of the letters.
What this is all about? The main character represents the director, being a great-greatchild to a well known Polish poet who once had a pen friendship with another even more well known Polish poet. Only the letters she wrote survived and are analysed throughout the film. Sounds exciting? Well... To say the least, the letters are really beautiful and I only would wish to be able to say the same thing about the movie, but I can't. For a film of just 64 minutes it is inexcusable boring!
I saw this film at the Viennale and the actress and the director have been present. I felt pity for the actress because she might be good but there was no chance to see much acting. She also collaborated on the screenplay, I wish she had not done it. The director was so full of praise of her own film, it was really amazing. The guy who did the interview was also very enthused, I wondered what he had smoked before the screening. It must have been good stuff.
