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FILMS / REVIEWS UK / Poland / Australia

Review: Infinite Storm

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- Polish auteur Małgorzata Szumowska indulges her obsession with the human body and its limitations, with Naomi Watts giving a great physical performance

Review: Infinite Storm
Naomi Watts in Infinite Storm

Małgorzata Szumowska may regularly travel to different countries to shoot her films, but she always takes her favourite themes with her. Infinite Storm, a co-production between the UK, Poland and Australia which is the opening film at Mastercard Off Camera, unspooling from 29 April-8 May in Kraków, is just that: a new journey through a familiar landscape.

Since her early films, Szumowska has been studying the human body, and how it handles and communicates feelings, frustrations and traumas. Being an avid sports fan herself, the Polish helmer looks at the characters’ physique with a keen, almost penetrating eye, trying to get the rhythm of the movements and the strengths and weaknesses pinned down by the camera, whose focus is set by her long-time collaborator and, since her previous film, Never Gonna Snow Again [+see also:
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, also co-director Michał Englert. Together, they follow Naomi Watts, who plays Pam Bales, a real-life hiker and volunteer rescuer who, on one particularly cold autumn day, finds a poorly dressed, nameless man (Billy Howle) freezing to death at Mount Washington peak.

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The rescue mission is more than just saving a stranger’s life, as it also involves coming to terms with a trauma that haunts Bales. The dynamics between the two resemble that between a parent and a stubborn child: Bales helps a man to get to safety, but he is much younger than she is, and is unprepared for the challenges that the mountain and the stormy weather have thrown at him. Pam firmly orders him around while he resists, owing to the hypothermia and fatigue that are making his behaviour irrational, and the longer their journey lasts, the more difficult it gets – just like in real life, with ever-bigger challenges rearing their heads as children grow up.

Szumowska and Englert focus on Watts’ makeup-less face and her grimaces, which make Pam’s struggle feel visceral. Her body is fighting the arduous conditions, and this is the most appealing part of the film, thanks to Watts’ strong performance. She does a great job of handling all of the physical scenes, and she only struggles with some of the dialogue, which can sound silly at times (with expressions like “funny business” and “bejesus”). The part of the movie where the past haunting both Pam and the man is revealed is somewhat unsatisfactory, however, as debuting screenwriter Joshua Rollins inches just a little too close to clichéd territory.

Overall, Infinite Storm is very well crafted, with a strong leading performance and a personal touch from the European contingent, also including costume designer Katarzyna Lewińska, and editors Agata Cierniak and Jarosław Kamiński. It’s also a nice addition to Szumowska’s body of work.

Infinite Storm is a UK-Polish-Australian co-production staged by Maven Screen Media and JamTart Productions, and co-produced by Studio Orka and dFlights. Its Polish distributor is Gutek Film (which has scheduled a local release for 27 May), and its world sales are handled by Sony Pictures.

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