This year, The Warsaw Film Festival was more than its name would suggest. Alongside the main programme (which is in itself quite extensive) it incorporated what would have been The Odesa International Film Festival. The latter did not take place for obvious reasons and so this gesture from Poland was, again, timely and gracious. Interestingly, though, the first thing I noticed as I stepped into the cinema to attend my first screening, was that in comparison with Odesa's festival, the one in Warsaw just did not have the oomph. In Warsaw, this was yet another event, one of many.
Obviously, there were dozens upon dozens of movies in Warsaw this October and going through all of them would be a task both tedious and impossible. Which is why I would like to focus on just three of them. The ones that have won nothing and yet the ones that seemed most enduring to me. I sincerely hope they will not be forgotten, as so many things are once a film festival is over.
The first work that really caught my attention was What Remains by the Chinese filmmaker Ran Huang. It is an unnerving Scandinavian film set in the 90s about a man, formerly a patient of a psychiatric hospital, who confesses to a number of shocking murders committed years ago. We then embark on a journey that unravels something deeply disturbing about all of its main characters (policeman, psychiatrist, the self-confessed criminal). There is not much humour in the film and even the little warmth that it has gets compromised in the end, but the lead performances are all amazing (Stellan Skarsgård is perfect here) and the questions the film poses are the kinds that matter. Like, do we really want to know? Because we probably don't.
Then there was a Danish period drama called The Kiss that looked lavish and sumptuous but which made me leave the cinema with my mind and my mental state completely unsettled. The Kiss is about the days just prior to the start of the First World War and a young recruit (excellent but awkward) whose good deed towards a stranger ties him to a rich household with a beautiful but crippled girl. What ensues is a Mermaid-like story that is also a complete opposite to what a fairy tale should stand for. The film has wonderful Danish restraint and a lot to say about white lies and how important it is to listen to your heart. And, equally, about how important it is to not listen to it too much.
Finally, there was an evocative Latvian film called January about a young wannabe filmmaker / photographer who finds himself in the midst of a difficult relationship and his country fighting for its independence from the swiftly disintegrating Soviet Union. It is a great story, and the historical backdrop makes it all the more powerful (especially if you consider how cruelly history keeps repeating itself). Oddly, parts of the film are a little reminiscent of Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise (a comparison the film is fully aware of). The acting from the young cast is emotional and bruising, the symbolism is inescapable, and the ending straddled the fine line between devastation, beauty and hope.
It is hard to shake off the feeling that The Warsaw Film Festival just does not have as much significance as the famed Gdynia event in September. The one that truly is the Polish Film Festival that matters. Still, you do not really go to all these screenings to be swept away by the dresses and the buzz and the statuettes. Predictably, you only come here for the movies, and there is no question that there were some shattering cinema experiences in Warsaw this October. Those hopeful, depressing scenes from the streets of Riga in particular will stay with me forever.
