In their début feature film, renowned visual artists and painters Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal explore the dark and disruptive sides of life in a beautiful Polish village, where everything gradually gives in to physical and moral decay under the scorching heat of summer sun
The feature film It Looks Pretty From a Distance/ Z daleka widok jest piekny enjoys its international premiere at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam and takes part in the festival’s Tiger Awards Competition.
The very first sequences of the film testify to the talent and experience the couple has in the visual arts. Wilhelm Sasnal, known for his precise yet abstract paintings, and Anka Sasnal, his wife and collaborator, instantly catch us into the traps set up by their protagonists in the woods of a beautiful country landscape. Ideally paced pure images create a paradoxical contemplative tension which seems to do away with dialogue and can even afford breaking with a linear narrative.
The village portrayed in the film is home to a dozen families. The world they live in is condensed and small, yet all areas of life are properly prioritised and kept in a quietly guarded order. It Looks Pretty From a Distance tells the story of villagers whose lives unfold in safe monotony and repetition, and yet, beneath the surface, a sharp alertness is preserved. This hidden reactivity turns their attention to any signs of otherness they encounter and allows them to profit from any opportunity. A covert and unpredictable lust seems to run the course of their lives. In the film, the heat itself drives everybody in the village to their wit’s ends, making them balance a thin line between rage and a lifeless stasis. Aggression and hatred on one hand, and fears, longings and emotional crises on the other are constantly about to break through a seemingly indifferent and still surface.
The main character of the film is Paweł. He lives with an old, ailing mother, and collects scrap metal, cutting away bits of old cars in his cluttered backyard. When he finally places his mother in a day-care facility, all seems prepared for the new life he wants to begin with his fiancee. But one day, Paweł vanishes without a trace and leaves his homestead abandoned. The village neighbors begin to steal things from this deserted farm house. At first they proceed secretly, in the night's guise, but gradually they come to treat the remains of Paweł's belongings like a left-behind property they all have a right to. Upon Paweł's unexpected return, the surprised community won't allow him to return to this plundered habitat.
Using a minimalistic and almost austere style, the Sasnals create an absolutely physical, if not physiological portrait of a society which takes on the form of a vicious swamp, unceasingly absorbing any kind of violence.
It Looks Pretty From a Distance is an example of purely contemporary cinema, at once a tangible and elusive piece.
International Film Festival Rotterdam screenings:
It Looks Pretty From a Distance
Pathé 7, Saturday 28th of January at 3.30 pm
Pathé 7, Sunday 29th of January at 12.15 pm
Pathé 7, Monday 30th of January at 9.15 pm
Pathé 7, Thursday 2nd of February at 12.30 pm
Pathé 7, Saturday 4th of February at 12.30 pm
The 41st edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam takes place from the 25th of January to the 5th of February, 2012. The IFFR is a festival founded with the aim of promoting young talents and emerging names in the film genre. It is one of the largest audience-driven festivals in the world. Its programme encompasses 11 different film sections and accompanying events by artists from across the globe. Cutting-egde new media productions also form an important part of the festival’s programme.
It Looks Pretty from a Distance will compete in The Tiger Awards section alongside 14 other titles from Turkey, Germany, Korea, Greece, Russia, China, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Burma, Serbia, Brazil and Iceland. As the competition intends to give up-and-coming talent the opportunity to shine on a global stage rather than promote those that have already made a name for themselves, works which take part in the competition must be first or second-time feature productions.
The Jury of the Tiger Awards Competition: Helena Ignez, Ludmila Cvikova, Tine Fischer, Eric Khoo, and Samuel Maoz will give out the three equal Hivos Tiger Awards of 15,000 Euros to the winning filmmakers on Monday the 30th of January.
Source: Tiger Awards Competition in Rotterdam