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KARLOVY VARY 2021 East of the West

Review: Dear Ones

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- Grzegorz Jaroszuk’s film is a puzzling, absurdist dramedy following a father and his estranged, grown-up children who set off on a search for their missing mother

Review: Dear Ones
Adam Bobik and Izabela Gwizdak in Dear Ones

One of the titles presented in the East of the West section of this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival is Grzegorz Jaroszuk’s new film Dear Ones [+see also:
trailer
interview: Grzegorz Jaroszuk
film profile
]
. The Polish director’s previous feature, Kebab & Horoscope [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, centred on a group of misfits from a carpet shop who have a chance to change their lives with the help of an ex-kebab shop owner and a former fortune teller.

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Dear Ones is another absurdist tale, set in modern-day Poland and based on a simple premise. Piotr (a dazed Adam Bobik) is a young, lonely man obsessed with superstition, meditation, healing stones and some obscure rituals. One day, his father (seasoned actor Olaf Lubaszenko) asks him and his sister Marta (Izabela Gwizdak) to pay him a visit, after the three haven’t been in touch with each other for several years. Their mother has gone missing without saying a word, and together, they reluctantly decide to start searching for her. The family’s investigation gradually discloses weird, mysterious aspects of the woman’s life. Apparently, she developed a gambling addiction, has never lost a game and became a sort of benefactor helping “her favourite neighbourhood” to make ends meet by lending them most of her money.

This discovery leads the trio on a long quest. They will meet people from all walks of life, often individuals on the margins of society or in serious financial trouble. Among these, “the Guy” (a sort of clumsy right-hand man for the missing woman), a character played by Piotr Żurawski, stands out from the crowd. The movie is rich in outlandish, surreal humour. The comedic devices employed by Jaroszuk may not prompt laughter, but the quirky atmospheres, the embarrassing silences and the characters’ ramblings may puzzle and amuse viewers for a few moments before the next pun or surreal character shows up. John Magnus Borge and Robert Lis’s cinematography chooses to focus on a cold colour palette, and ties in well with the three lead characters’ estrangement and the dark humour of the piece.

The closure of the narrative arc is in keeping with the bizarre spirit of this movie, and the final plot twist provides an answer to (almost) all of the questions arising during the film’s running time.

On the whole, this Polish-Czech co-production is a rather unusual viewing experience. It speaks about topics that are highly familiar in European cinema – such as father-son estrangement and the lack of communication – but it does so in a very entertaining way, steering clear of exploring the usual melodramatic clichés of the genre while keeping up a much-needed level of light-heartedness throughout the story.

Dear Ones was produced by Warsaw-based studio MD4, and co-produced by Czech outfit Axman Production and Polish firm EC1 Łódź. Moscow-based Antipode is in charge of its international sales.

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