Directed by: Filip Dzierżawski
Starring: Robert Więckiewicz, Ryszard Ronczewski, Michalina Łabacz, Przemysław Przestrzelski
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Wojciech Smarzowski was never interested in depicting the virtues of his compatriots by cinematic means. Wedding receptions continue to play a central role in the life of Poles to the point that he decided to shot a new version of his brilliant satirical and vaguely grotesque debut film Wesele (The Wedding, 2004). Fairly enough, the English international title of the new Wesele (The Wedding Day, 2021) does not match the one adopted at that time for his previous film that nearly achieved a cult status in his country. The Wedding Day, in fact, is not a remake of The Wedding by the same filmmaker, but rather the director’s take on the ritual of marriage 15 years later.
This time the host of the ceremony is Rysiek Wilk (Robert Więckiewicz) an unprincipled pig farmer who is desperately trying to finalize a land sale to a foreigner on the day his pregnant daughter Kasia (Michalina Łabacz) is getting married to football hooligan Janek (Przemysław Przestrzelski). The bride would like to emigrate after the wedding while the groom thinks that he could be better off in his native country, especially with a newly rich father-in-law. After all, Poland has been more and more prosperous over the past decade and departing for a better life abroad has become optional for many Poles.
While the original title of the two Wesele reads the same in native language, in the Polish poster promoting the new film, the letter L is replaced by Lamed “ל”, the Hebrew version of a Semitic character on which Latin “L” is based. This tweak in the movie logo evokes the main sub-plot of The Wedding Day, gravitating around the past of Risiek’s father, Antoni Wilk (Ryszard Ronczewski), who is to be made Righteous Among the Nations closer to his deathbed. With a storyline not fully immersed in the present, Smarzowski conjured up through a series of flashbacks the spiral of violence and antisemitism of a pogrom as witnessed by Antoni. The sequences from the past are suggestive of the incendiary tone of Wołyń (Hatred, 2016), another Smarzowski film on the atrocities during World War II for which Poles as well had their share of responsibility.
Although Smarzowski acquired a taste to play with time over the years as clearly noticeable in this film, those who watched The Wedding might experience a feeling of déjà vu. It could not be otherwise since he invited to banquet on the big screen the same old sampler of vulgarians, bribable clerics and small town grandstanders. Subtleties aside, the Pieter Bruegel of Polish cinema offers once more a caricatural but clear-cut depiction of provincial Poland, dissolute, immobile and greedy as usual.
Film Reviewed by Giuseppe Sedia
Published by Kino Mania on February 12, 2022