MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
|
PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME
Friday, November 1, 2013
MOVIE REVIEW Aftermath (Pokłosie)
Brothers Of History, Family Of Fate
Maciej Stuhr as Jozek and Ireneusz Czop as Franek in Wladyslaw Pasikowski's
thriller "Aftermath". Menemsha Films
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Friday,
November 1,
2013
The elegiac music at the start of Wladyslaw Pasikowski's powerful fact-based
thriller "Aftermath" (Pokłosie) leads Polish native Franek (Ireneusz Czop) back
to his native land. It's a solemn homecoming and we
sense it before we truly understand just how painful it will be. Franek's
younger brother Jozek (Maciej Stuhr) doesn't fully embrace him even though
Franek has been away for 20 years, nestled safely in Chicago. Jozek's wife
and kids mysteriously arrive at Franek's Windy City doorstep, prompting Franek's
sudden return to Poland. He wants answers.
Secrets are unearthed, among them the discovery of Jewish landowners' bodies
being dug up from graves and their headstones used as paving for a church in a
Polish town. Jozek is compelled to restore the headstones to their
rightful place. He doesn't know why. "It's the right thing to do,"
he says. Franek, an anti-Jewish racist, is puzzled. "What's it to
you? These Yids are not even your people." "Aftermath" shows us
fertile and unsettling terrain, and the brothers, who already have a tense
relationship, will experience an alarming truth that will rock you. A film
that gives rise to unyielding anger within, "Aftermath" shakes you to your very
core, and grips you long after it ends. It has a shattering resonance that
leaves you breathless.
Mr. Pasikowski's stunning, impressive film is an archeological dig into very
sensitive history amid many Poles who prefer to let the past be the past.
Franek mentions to Jozek that in America people say that Polish people gave up
Jewish people to the Germans during World War Two, which, by the way, is true.
Such is the volatile tenor of the history around this subject in Poland that Mr.
Stuhr received death threats there for his portrayal of Jozek in "Aftermath".
The threat is proof that this very recent history in Poland and exposing of it
is taboo and still met with lots of resistance.
Despite the uncomfortable state of being between Jozek and
Franek their relationship evolves, becoming more tender as both become committed
to preserving the legacy and dignity of Jewish people who were murdered and
whose land in Poland was forcibly taken from them. "Aftermath" develops
with questions, suspicions and forbidden explorations, proceeding as a mystery
thriller, where every turn promises something intriguing, startling and
compelling. I was rapt with attention. A powder-keg of a film,
"Aftermath" is arresting, edifying viewing.
This indispensible lesson about Polish-Jewish history is required viewing.
Films like these are absolutely necessary so that we don't ever forget history,
anyone's history, or, heaven forbid, repeat it. "Aftermath" says that
history is not only important but that history is part of the present.
When watching "Aftermath" you feel a duty to remember what you've seen, for you
feel it so deeply. You need not be well-versed in Eastern European history
or Jewish history to appreciate and be enriched by a sensitive, perceptive
portrait of two brothers in a Polish town torn asunder by vitriol, racial hate
and secrecy. The invective flows as villagers challenge Jozek and Franek,
who increasingly find themselves as exiles in their own backyard, exposed to
violence.
"Aftermath" grabs your collar and holds uncomfortable
chapters of Poland's recent past right up to your face, forcing you to reckon
with them. We watch the brothers Jozek and Franek struggle to do the same.
"Aftermath" observes a divide between native land and America for any immigrant,
specifically in the idea that escaping to America allows you to disappear from
your heritage to form a new one, or, worse yet, forget the old. "They
don't bother you too much," says brother Franek, of he and fellow compatriots
who strip asbestos back in Chicago. After Franek returns to Poland
though, his conscience will be bothered forever.
"Aftermath", which opened exclusively in New York City today at
Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and Cinema Village, is not rated by the Motion Picture Association Of America
but contains disturbing scenes.
The film is in the Polish language with English subtitles. The
film's running time is one hour and 44 minutes. The film opens in Los
Angeles at The Royal, Town Center and Playhouse 7 on November 15.
COPYRIGHT 2013. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
FOLLOW
MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
| PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME