jkohen-1

I watched this movie on the worldwide opening night in Warsaw. It started as an interesting, but quirky dark fantasy film with hints of horror. Not my cup of tea, but it could still be an entertaining evening.

However, soon enough the movie turned into a mess. The plot is a trivialization of child abuse that despite using fairy tales tropes is as explicit as it can get, like the screenwriter never learned about metaphors. The dialog, mostly delivered as drawn out monologues, never made much sense and failed to keep anyone's attention. The numerous characters whose lives were interwoven in complicated relationships as you would expect of a soap opera on its 20th consecutive running year. The sound was OK, though the adult screams were ridiculous at times. The only redeeming factor was the photography, which did a great job capturing the forest where the film was filmed and many of the aged interiors.

The movie could have easily been 30 to 45 minutes shorter. Each of the two or three epilogues after the mystery had been solved made people in the audience ask whether the movie was finally ending that time.

Ironically, when the producer introduced the movie, he criticized the same film institutes that financed 100% of this movie for not funding movies that aren't romantic comedies or war movies. And that's why we can't have nice things.

I went to watch this movie with little expectations, mostly to complement my Polish learning, but came back fascinated. We are treated to a glimpse in the daily routine of this solitary old woman. More than that, we are offered the chance to look at her own personal world through her eyes. It inspires us with her fears, her joys, her memories and even her dreams.

Her routine does not become repetitive at all during the film: something new is always afoot, and the dog provides some counterbalance to her monologue. All other actors do a great job here, including the pet, but the old lady seemed so real that sometimes you wanted to answer back to the screen. However, the camera work is what most got my attention. It marvelously captures all the situations and the feelings involved in them, and presents them in texture-rich black and white. The visuals captivated me from beginning to end: the carefully chosen composition and angles, the impressive number of different textures and the use of lighting, as well as some camera tricks, like shooting through glass, made me feel like I was watching a collection of very beautiful and evocative pictures on top of which the characters moved like paper figurines.

Unfortunately my Polish is not very good, yet, so I missed about half of the dialogue. I'm hoping to see this movie subtitled to a language I understand better, but I recommend watching this movie even if you don't get a single word.