Tomasz Drozdowicz's film debut Futro / Fur is part of the trend in Polish cinema which portrays the humorous - from the audience's point of view - adventures of characters representing a specific group in order to offer a sociological or even social diagnosis - often bitter and thought-provoking. This is nothing new in cinema - or literature - but can still yield interesting observations.
"Setting off down a trail that was blazed a long time ago, the director must have known he would end up in a tangle of associations and comparisons", wrote a reviewer from the monthly "Kino" (4/2008), "at the same time having at his fingertips many ready-made solutions and clichés which have appeared somewhere, at some time, once or twice. Nevertheless, you can sense nothing of this burden on screen. That in itself makes you look closer at Drozdowicz's film. The director knows what he wants to look at and what to show. He expressively outlines and highlights successive fragments of his social mosaic, laying bare more and more bluntly the grotesqueness of members of the so-called middle class who have a much higher opinion of their own class. Unfortunately, their view is in stark contrast to reality. This is a bitter observation, not free of satire. The film doesn't aim to denounce or accuse, though. The director treats the screen more like the devil's mirror from Andersen's fairy tale which reveals, ruthlessly and without make-up, everything that is false, defective, evil in people and between people."
The plot is no different from the usual storyline in such films. It's the First Communion of the grandson of Henryk Makowiecki, manager of a German company's Polish branch, and granddad is throwing a garden party at his place to celebrate. The family and invited guests arrive, including the German owner of Makowiecki's company. What starts off as a routine party according to the savoir vivre of the upper middle class, soon turns into a grim series of events leading rapidly towards disaster - all due to concealed family disagreements, overpowering envy, a lack of proper parental care, and finally a lack of elementary good manners that reveals itself under the influence of emotions (and alcohol). Drozdowicz uses this cliché, familiar from the films of Altman but also well-rooted in Polish cinema thanks to pictures like Wojciech Smarzowski's Wesele / The Wedding, as a sociological description of today's middle class (perhaps even, given the material status of the characters, the upper middle class). Parading before the camera is a plethora of fantastic characters (credit is due to the great cast, led by Anna Romantowska, Dorota Segda, Teresa Budzisz-Krzyżanowska, and Karolina Gruszka) representing the new elite. These are no longer people aspiring to Europe, these are Europeans in every detail, at least in their own eyes. Not only have they fully taken advantage of the political transformation after 1989, but also know how to benefit from the changes they are a part of today. They are ideal consumers, for whom the most important thing in life is to manifest their consumer potential; it's about who can better flaunt their economic or social status. The end result is that a family gathering marking a religious occasion not only loses its family character but also its religious aspect (someone is even surprised that the central figure of the celebrations, the sensitive young boy receiving First Communion, has invited his religion teacher to the party). It's all a huge vanity fair with a primitive bragging match involving financial achievements and lack of sensitivity.
Tomasz Drozdowicz and screenplay author Beata Hyczko, who was an award-winner of the Youth and Film Koszalin Festival of Film Debuts, spare no one - neither the adults, seduced by the all-powerful gadget civilization, nor even the children, who aren't as innocent as they first seemed. The vision outlined in Futro / Fur - humorous and attractive in its form - is more bitter than funny, but could turn out to be healing; that is, as long as it reaches an audience who have retained the vestiges of sensitivity.
- Futro / Fur, Poland-Germany 2007. Director: Tomasz Drozdowicz, screenplay: Beata Hyczko, cinematography: Damian Pietrasik, music: Bartłomiej Oleś, Marcin Oleś, set design: Katarzyna Boczek, costumes: Małgorzata Wodzyńska, Anna Hornostaj, editing: Tomasz Drozdowicz, sound: Paweł Fidala. Cast: Teresa Budzisz-Krzyżanowska (Irena Makowiecka), Leszek Piskorz (Henryk Makowiecki), Agnieszka Wosińska (Alicja), Witold Dębicki (Antoni), Grzegorz Damięcki (Robert), Dorota Segda (Grażyna), Janusz Chabior (Wiktor), Michał Czernecki (Jarek), Magdalena Boczarska (Ania), Halina Łabonarska (Halina), Anna Romantowska (Frankowska), Mieczysław Hryniewicz (Frankowski), Karolina Gruszka (the religion teacher), Henryk Talar (Major Puszek). Production: SF Autograf, Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion, SPI International Polska. Co-financed by: Polish Film Institute, Euroimages, distribution: SPI International Polska. Length 101 min. Released on 25 April 2008.
Author: Konrad J. Załęcki, October 2008
Awards:
- 2008 - Award for best screenplay for Beata Hyczko at the Youth and Film Koszalin Festival of Film Debuts in Koszalin