Starring: Agnieszka Grochowska, Mateusz Kościukiewicz, Anna Próchnia
Directed by: Filip Marczewski
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Despite relatively insignificant immigration compared to its neighbors, Poland has also suffered from the wave of xenophobia that has afflicted Europe recently. The production of movies dealing with this topic, like Bez wstydu (Shameless, 2011), is sure to increase. Film director Filip Marczewski has followed in his father, Wojciech’s, footsteps by going into film.
In his debut full-length feature, Marczewski has opted to flesh out his acclaimed short feature Melodramat (Melodrama, 2005) about an incestous liaison between a sister and her youngest brother. Bez wstydu has been upgraded with a subplot set in a Roma community facing right-wing extremism during a whistle-stop tour of Polish Silesia.
We see Tadek (Mateusz Kościukiewicz) peeping at his half-naked sister Anka (Anna Grochowa) through a keyhole in a strikingly banal scene. Polish cinema has fallen a long way in its depiction of voyeurism since the masterly scenes of erotic surveillance devised by Krzysztof Kieślowski in Krótki film o miłości (A Short Film About Love, 1988).
The lack of assurance among Polish filmmakers when it comes to representations of sexuality has become more and more evident over the years. It is, however, the lack of cohesion between the perverse central relationship and the background story that will prevent Marczewski’s feature-length debut from spreading its wings at foreign festivals.
Originally published by The Krakow Post on September 01, 2012