Polityka - film review

Went to a cinema yesterday for the first time this year (shame on me, flat finishing tribulations and summer period were inconducive to familiarising with new moving pictures). To see the long-awaited depiction of Polish political arena, I chose a lunch-time screening at a local Multikino. The film which had premiered on Wednesday is played more than 10 times a day over the first week in Multikino Ursynów, which signals the only cinema in the neighbourhood has braced for high demand for tickets. I feared the screening room would be crowded, yet I was nearly alone out there. The audience was composed of around 20 viewers. Not a blockbuster…

I have watched some of Patryk Vega’s films shot in recent years, some were reviewed as not worthwhile buying a voucher exchangeable for a cinema ticket, therefore I knew I should have not expected a highbrow sense of humour nor a sophisticated plot. Polityka’s first reviews were anything but favourable; critics and journalists view the film as mediocre.

As for the plot, a little spoiler – the film is made up of a few stories whose plots and characters intertwine with one another. The stories are a mixture of “I have seen it all before” and some political fiction, however far too predictable and far too obvious in terms of similarities with real persons and events.

The cast and the effort of actors to play the scenes from Polish politics after 2015 are major strengths of the film that make it worthwhile at all. Hats down to Andrzej Grabowski (the chairman), Antek Królikowski (an almost minister of national defence) and Zbigniew Zamachowski (the father director) whose roles in the film proves their mastery in the craft.

The film deals blows nearly only to the ruling party, although there are several prominent politicians of it omitted at all (not a second dedicated to the current justice minister who has done more harm to Poland than the former prime minister). The opposition is ridiculed in one of the stories only, yet for the sake of symmetry and despite my antipathy towards PiS I would see more opposition-flogging scornful scenes (Ryszard Petru being my main candidate to be derided).

Just like Kler and Tylko nie mów nikomu, the film is going to change nothing in the parliamentary election due in 5 weeks. I keep hoping for a result ensuring PiS misses the simple majority by a number of seats large enough to make buying off deputies from other groupings a nuisance.