Spoor [Pokot] **** (2017, Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka, Wiktor Zborowski, Jakub Gierszal) – Movie Review 

Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka grabs the attention as Janina Duszejko, a seemingly dotty older woman who lives alone in the Klodzko Valley south-western Poland, close to the border with the Czech Republic.

She teaches kids English, part time, and looks after her huge, stuff–filled home, and two dogs. Though a social outcast, she is a bit of a life force, determined to fight for what she believes to be right, whatever trouble that is going to get her in. It is hunting country, and she is a fervent animal lover. One day the dogs are gone and she goes crazy.

When a series of mysterious murders start up, she is convinced she knows the killer, but everyone think she is crazy. Well, she believes in astrology for starters.

Co-writer/ co-director Agnieszka Holland is on fiery, fighting, combative form, turning in a provocative, darkly comic, as well as great-looking film. She is overtly busy tackling environmental issues but she may also be engaged in delivering a political allegory. But don’t let that worry you or put you off.

Mandat-Grabka pulls off the difficult trick of making the heroine sympathetic and worrying. She should come over as an irritating pain, as she is seen by the town’s officials and priest. But she mainly shines out as the stalwart fighter for animal rights and battler against the nutty local hunters, as she is seen by her little band of friends and admirers. If ever they wanted to remake it in English, it would be an ideal role for Helen Mirren.

It runs sort of like a mystery thriller, in the way that Georges Simenon’s stories do. Yes it is more of a crime drama seen through the lens of an art movie. Agnieszka Holland is after making an art work, and she does. It is plenty rich and strange, and doesn’t have any trouble engaging the attention for what in another film would be a long running time of 130 minutes.

It is simply a very good movie, and it is excellent that you never really know where it is headed or is going to end up. It is quite a cheeky, offbeat subversive sort of film, belying its polished surface, and the formal quality of its performances.

It was chosen as Poland’s submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review 

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