Directed by: Kamil Krawczycki
Starring: Jan Hrynkiewicz, Paweł Tomaszewski, Ewa Kolasińska, Ewa Skibińska
Rating: ★★★★☆
In recent years the Microbudget Film Competition in Gdynia has offered a cornucopia of fairly good
debut features such as Piosenki o miłości (Songs About Love, 2021). After directing Mój koniec świata (The End of My World, 2017), a short film on homosexuality, Krakow-educated Kamil Krawczycki presented himself at the Polish Film Festival with Słoń (Elephant) a gay love story set in his native region of the Polish Highlands. Trailblazer is perhaps too strong of a word, but Krawczycki’s efforts is one of the first attempts to introduce LGBT cinema into the Polish mainstream. For the record, Tomasz Wasilewski’s Płynące wieżowce (Floating Skyscrapers, 2013) remains probably the first taboo-busting feature film in Poland on the topic of coming out.
The Tatra Mountains between Slovakia and Poland are the perfect scenery for a gay cowboy drama, but Elephant is more than that. Relatively speaking, the comparison between Elephant and Brokeback Mountain (2005) is not an aberration. As a universal and emotionally far reaching love story, the Polish film is not any worse than Ang Lee’s Academy Award winner. The release date gap these between these two films speaks volumes about perception of the local LGBT community in Poland.
The storyline revolves around the character of Bartek (Jan Hrynkiewicz), a young farmer from the Tatra mountains. The man is not ready to ford the river near his possession on horseback nor to share his sexual orientation in his rural community. The placid but not devoid of conflicts life he leads with his mother is stirred up by the sudden appearance of UK-immigrant and bass player Dawid (Paweł Tomaszewski) who returns home for the funeral of his father that is also Bartek’s neighbour. Rumours about the boys’ affair spread quickly at the countryside. Will Bartek be able to endure the ensuing ostracism within his community?
The discrete but impactful film editing work, assembled by the Polish director with Agnieszka Białek-Zaborowska, hints visually at the open questions that Krawczycki wants to debate. During a cheerful scene at the place of Danuta (Ewa Kolasińska) only Bartek’s non-judgemental neighbour, the blue elephant knick-knack that she chooses as a symbol of diversity, and which alludes to the film title, is put next to the shot of a Madonna. Can gay and Catholic identities be integrated in one of the most homophobic countries in Europe?
It is difficult to believe that the Zakopane-born filmmaker did not watch Xavier Dolan’s Tom at the Farm (2003) that recounts a homosexual romance blossoming amongst the hay and standard chores required at the countryside. Krawczycki’s film, however, is less crude than Dolan’s melodrama, being focused on the reality of what is country has to offer, or rather to deny, to sexual minorities. All the same, just like Cicha noc (Silent Night, 2017), Elephant is a drama about the disruptive impact of emigration on the social and family fabric in the most impoverished parts of Poland.
Elephant premiered at the New Horizons film festival in Wroclaw. A prerelease screening of the film was held on October 19th 2022 at the Pod Baranami Cinema in Krakow.
Film Reviewed by Giuseppe Sedia
Published by Kino Mania on November 04, 2022