If you visit Belgrade somewhere between end of February and beginning of March, you should also visit Fest ― famous film festival with long tradition. This year we have 46th Fest going on and I have watched some amazing films in all cinemas in Belgrade. I don’t miss this festival because you can see a lot of really good movies from all sides of the world. So, forget about Hollywood. In my opinion, different productions from other countries are better and they can really make some amazing and good films. So, don’t limit yourself. Explore!
Last year I watched on the Fest one Polish movie (ˈDemonˈ) and I liked it so much. So, this year I decided to watch some Polish movie again. I chose film named ˈSpoorˈ (ˈPokotˈin Polish). Synopsis and trailer were really interesting so I decided to go to the cinema nearby students’ dormitory where I live. The ticket was so cheap ― only 200 dinars (something around 1, 6 euros or 2 dollars). In other cinemas it was more expensive, but still not that much. Maybe something around 350 dinars. The film was directed by the famous Polish director Agnieszka Holland and her daughter Kasia Adamik. Agnieszka made script from one Polish novel named ˈDrive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Deadˈ from Olga Tokarczuk. This movie brought to Agnieszka Holland Silver Berlin Bear.
Main part took actress Agnieszka Mandat and whole movie is that geat mostly because of her amazing acting, I think. She is playing Janina Duszejko, an older woman who lives alone in one small place in south-western Poland. Her house is located in the middle of woods and whole movie is full of amazing scenes of nature, landscapes with snow or flowers, beautiful forests. This lady is an architect in retirement and now she is working as English teacher in the school and kids adore her. She is nice lady; she lives simple and peaceful life. Her best friends are two dogs and she is living in idyllic world. She is in deep touch with the nature and she enjoys every moment of her life far away from the society. But this idyllic world of nature soon will be destroyed.
This area is rich in animal species so hunters are everywhere. They are powerful and rich people from the town and they have enough courage to break the low and to keep hunting even when it’s forbidden. They are violent and brutal and they don’t have any respect for the nature. Janina is trying to win the battle against the windmills. She is trying to convince local police to do something about it but they simply don’t want to mess around with powerful people and they also think that nature and animals are not that important. They don’t see things with Janinaʼs eyes. Almost everybody in this town goes to hunting (local priest, mayor, policemen…). The richest guy in the town is also hunter and he possesses slaughterhouse for the foxes and his employers are taking their fur even they are still alive. Film is full of really disturbing scenes. This movie is not going to leave you without feelings. And if you are too emotional, it is going to be so hard for you to watch some scenes.
The really fight for Janina begins when her dogs disappeared. She is trying to find them so desperately but without any success and in the end she will find out that her dogs were killed by hunters. After this in the town happened something so mysterious and unexpected ― serial killings which nobody could explain. In this town people are divided on tyrant and victims. Those who cannot fight against the violence become victims. If they are to week, seek or poor, they will be humiliated. This is the case of one young girl who runs away from drunken father and she is trying to save her brother. She has to be prostitute and she is raped almost every day. The guy who is in love with her cannot help her. He is computer genius but he has epileptic attacks and he has to hide that because ˈpeople don’t like weird thingsˈ. Everybody who didn’t show resistance becomes victims. Janina is not that. She is fighter and she wants justice.
She understands animals and nature so deeply and she knows that people should have respect for them. She considers animals as equal to humans and she thinks about their pain and fear like pain and fear of human beings. The most emotional scene for me was when she found dying wild boar in woods. She held poor animal in her arms till its last breath. This scene was opposite to the scene in which priest explains to Janina that she should stop crying for her lost dogs because animal don’t have soul and they are created only to bee food of humans and to be at their service. In the scene with dying boar we can see that that is not the truth and that animals have feelings and soul. It is enough just to look at their eyes and to see their suffering and fear.
Janina is trying to convince police that animals took their revenge and that actually they are responsible for serial killings. But, everybody thinks that she is crazy. And really, sometimes she looks like person with serious psychological disorder. She is too emotional, she attacks people, she is telling some nonsenses. But her love for animals and deep connection with nature are real and nobody can put them in question.
In the end of this interesting movie we find out that the real killer was Janina. She was always at the place of murders or she was the last person who saw the victims. She didn’t even know that she did all of those things because her personality was divided. In the moment of nervous breakdown she will remember that she was responsible for all the killings. She took the revenge in the name of nature but also in the name of other people who were too weak to do that by themselves.
It is interesting that her character was made in that way that audience doesn’t feel hate for her. When I watched this movie I felt negative feelings for people who she killed, because movie is showing them only in scenes where they are violent and where they are hurting animals or other people. So, Janinaʼs justice for me was like some deserved punishment for them. But, in one scene Janina is talking about violence and she is saying that revenge has never brought victim back to the life. This is contradictory, but it’s only showing that her personality is divided. However, in the end she escapes from the town whit help of her friends who she protected by killing their torturers. Last scene of this movie show her happy and content with her new family. She has a husband and the girl who was prostitute is now like her own daughter. She married genius guy and they have kids. Nature always wins in the end so we can see in one side dead body of bad guy decomposing in the woods and new life in Janinaˈs house on the other side. New life is represented by those young and happy kids.
Conclution
This movie can really make us think about our attitude toward nature. Is it really necessary for us to do some thing which can be bad for our woods, air, rivers, and animals? In the past people needed to hunt because they had to eat and survive. Why do we need hunting now? Just for fun? Maybe we have need for killing and violence in our blood? We feel important and powerful when we have gun in our arms and when we represent fear for other species? I know just one thing ― in the woods nearby my house there is less and less animals every day. Some of species disappeared forever from our planet and we should really be afraid about rest of them.