Tower. A Bright Day – Wieza. Jasny Dzien (2017)

Directed by: Jagoda Szelc | 106 minutes | drama, horror | Actors: Anna Krotoska, Malgorzata Szczerbowska, Anna Zubrzycki, Dorota Lukasiewicz, Rafal Kwietniewski, Rafal Cieluch, Laila Hennessy, Ida Kwietniewska, Igor Kwietniewski

A Polish family gathers for the communion of eleven-year-old Nina (Laila Hennessy), at the home of Mula (Anna Krotoska). In attendance include a demented grandmother (Anna Zubrzycki) and Mula’s unstable sister Kaja (Malgorzata Szczerbowska), with whom Mula and her husband Michal (Rafal Cieluch) share a family secret.

The sisters seem to be at odds. Those who know the secret – it is spoilered here and there in the press – will see a more interesting film than yours truly, who had to watch hocus pocus for an hour before he knew what he was watching. That’s a shame, because he was looking forward to it after seeing the opening credit ‘based on future events’.

When filmmakers saddle the viewer with such a deficiency, there are two options: they want it this way or have forgotten to report it in an inescapable way. The technical quality and acting don’t give rise to carelessness, so the former has to be the case. But the ignorant viewer misses the importance of the irrational behavior in the first hour of the film.

Although there are countless examples of domestic situations where there is a difference of prior knowledge between those involved, we believe that a film that aims to communicate this should focus on a character with an ignorant perspective. Director and screenwriter Jagoda Szelc chose protagonists who are aware of the family secret as the center of action.

Things will eventually fall into place, but that basically means for the viewer that he or she has spent too much time with these people, or needs to rethink what they saw before. That’s not entirely true, because a short film might have failed to capture the emotional charge of this arthouse exercise; however, it may not be necessary to see a movie twice.

Conclusion: had just told at the beginning that Kaja is Nina’s biological mother, then the twisting of the sisters, as well as the Malick-like mystique, would have been more expressive. Oh yes, and we don’t understand the lock, but whoever does will see something beautiful.