kobieta z… (woman of…) (w&d małgorzata szumowska, michał englert)

Kobieta Z taps into the wave of trans films that reflect the post-Foucaultian changes in global society, or at least western global society. Aniela Wesoly starts the film as Andrzej and the film follows the journey of their transformation over the course of forty years. Boldly, the film resists making Aniela an attractive woman, pushing the journey of transformation into middle age. Andrzej is a dreamy young man, confident in his sexuality, making the conversion all the more impactful. Deep down they feel themselves to be a woman in a man’s body and they remain true to this belief, no matter what it costs them. Which is almost everything: their social status, their livelihood, their loving marriage, their looks. There is an upside to all this at the end, when their sacrifices appear to be rewarded with another kind of happiness. But the journey is long and bleak and follows the journey of their country from tightly buttoned communism to something far more liberal. The edit style is pacy and sinuous. Scenes are rarely given time to settle, and when they do, the film pulls out of them as soon as possible. This curtails the possible melodrama which Aniela’s story is liable to, as family and friends react to their transformation. What the filmmakers seem to aim for is an epic vision of Aniela’s struggle, one where we too will come up against the relentless antagonism of the forces ranged against them. 

never gonna snow again (w&d malgorzata szumowska, michal englert)

Never gonna Snow Again is a film full of ingredients. A psychic masseur from Ukraine. A gated community on the edge of Warsaw. Peopled by the dissociated upper middle class. A teacher dying of cancer. A woman in love with her bulldogs. A frustrated mum. A racist ex UN peacekeeper. Kids home-cooking MDMA tablets. A little bit of everything that makes the modern world go around. The film is beautifully shot, with every frame composed and lit with real flair. The only hitch is that the narrative itself doesn’t really make the most of all these ingredients. The film strolls around the gated community, following Zenia, the masseur, as he soothes souls and muscles, and charms the locals to no particular end. There is a suggestion at the film’s conclusion that this is all about immigration, with Poland now part of the promised EU land which Zenia uses his gifts to infiltrate. But unlike Ramussen’s Flee, which treads similar territory, the film backs away from any kind of emotional involvement. Zenia remains a blank canvas of a figure, who literally vanishes one day, never to return. The overall effect is of a film brimful of ideas which never quite amount to as much as they might have done. Watching it on the day Godard’s death was announced, it was hard not to think about how the aesthetisisation of cinema sometimes works against any more polemical or discursive ambitions it might aspire to, something Godard was well aware of and fought against.