Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Contemporary Polish films aren’t much fun. Other countries inspire frothy romantic comedies in which income is not an issue. Not Poland. Other countries show off iconic architecture as a backdrop. Not Poland. The first image that comes to mind when I think of Poland is the Gdansk shipyards. I think of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement. When I watch contemporary Polish films, I see depressed women of all income brackets struggling with bad relationships under a grey sky. They might enjoy sex, but they aren’t in control of their destiny. They will inevitably be punished for their transgression. It is as if the filmmaker is wagging a finger to warn the audience, ‘Don’t do this’. Polish films will feature ‘bad boys’, young male protagonists with anti-social attitudes who express their loathing of homosexuality and contempt for women. In some films, loathing and contempt extends to other cultures. These are our principal viewpoint characters, thugs nursing a wound or two, striki...

  Pictured :  Anna Maria Sieklucka and Michele Morrone in a scene from the Polish kidnap drama, ' 365 Days '. Back in 2013, the website goodreads.com listed 445 books in the sub-genre of ‘ romance or erotica with kidnapping ’. If the list was updated, ‘ 365 Days ’ by the Polish author Blanka Lipińska, first published in 2018, would be added to it. It is thoroughly generic stuff. Whilst on holiday with her dolt of a boyfriend, Laura is followed and abducted by Massimo, a brooding but forceful young Italian mob boss. He gives her 365 days for her to fall in love with him, after which, if she is still immune to his charms, he will let her go. Laura naturally resists and engages in a tango of deferred gratification. I haven’t read it, but the novel was rated one star by Justyna Świątkiewicz on the above-mentioned website. Now it has been turned into a film, co-directed by Barbara Bialowąs and Tomasz Mandes, who co-wrote the screenplay with Tomasz Klimala, in the anticipation tha...

  Zabawa Zabawa (translated as ‘Playing Hard’) is a Polish film about three women, aged sixty, forty and twenty respectively, who are alcoholics.   The co-writer (with Mika Dunin) and director, Kinga Dębska, wags her finger at them for ninety minutes, showing how dangerous their addiction is to others as well as, in the young woman’s case, to herself. In the end, the woman who only harms herself is saved, though she will carry the weight of her foolishness for the rest of her life. She also ‘honours’ her father, whose alcohol problems she previously mocked. The most interesting aspect of the film, one which may rebound on Dębska, is that she shows talented, capable women blighted by their weakness, as if alcoholism was a symptom of their success, or at least their inability to accept aspects of their lives. This is not a film that proposes that women can have successful, fulfilling lives at the top of their game. They are one tipple away from losing everything. As such, the...

  ‘Losing face’ is an English expression for losing respect. In the Polish film, Mug ( Twarz ), Metallica-loving construction worker, Jacek Kalisztan (Mateusz Kościukiewicz) loses half his face, requiring a transplant, and almost all the respect from his family and girlfriend. He ends up boarding the very bus on which he used to see his beloved Dagmara (Malgorzata Gorol) leave the village, having no way to meaningfully contribute to anyone’s lives. He is worth just twenty zloty, the small amount collected for him at Sunday service. As we see a wide Kaftan-like basket being passed around, no one is moved to offer money to pay for the expensive immune-suppressants that the Polish health service won’t fund. Co-written and directed by Malgorzata Szumowska, who is married to her lead actor – Kościukiewicz previously had the lead role in her 2013 film, In the Name of ( W imie... ) – Mug is pitched somewhere between black comedy, broad satire and allegory. It never quite comes togeth...

  Pictured : Aldona ( Michalina Sosna , right) finds an unexpected passenger in her back seat, seven-year-old Zosia ( Wiktoria Nowak , left) in a scene from the Polish family comedy romance, ' Uwierz w Miko łaja 2 ' (' Believe in Santa Claus 2 '), directed by Anna Wieczur . Still courtesy of Magnetes Pictures (Poland) / Next Film . Set in Bielsko-Biala, Poland’s 22 nd largest city, the Polish family comedy Uwierz w Mikołaja 2 ( Believe in Santa Claus 2) is the sequel to director Anna Wieczur’s 2023 film, Uwierz w Mikołaja . The earlier film grossed USD 3 million at the Polish box office . It is an ensemble comedy-drama that involves three generations of a family as well as romance, a ski lift, drinking, swearing, a television programme and digital snow.  At its heart is a hopeful seven-year-old child, Zosia (Wiktoria Nowak) who believes in Santa and desperately needs a miracle. Initially, she asks for her father, Artur (Antoni Pawlicki) to be released from prison. H...