Fears – Łukasz Ronduda & Łukasz Gutt | #film

Fears – Łukasz Ronduda & Łukasz Gutt

Awarded the Golden Lion at the 46th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, Ronduda and Gutt’s film is a work filled with paradoxes: modest, yet fulfilled; born of deep disagreement, yet avoiding excess solemnity and academic language; socially involved, yet devoid of journalistic simplifications.

He wears a black tracksuit with rainbow stripes, a large cross on his neck, dyed hair and has a stylish enduro motorbike. He’s by no means a star of Warsaw’s art galleries – he is more like a boy from the neighbourhood, a colourful bird living in a small village somewhere in the Polish countryside. Daniel (Dawid Ogrodnik) combines different styles, sensitivities and worlds which seemingly cannot be combined. He is a respected artist, a graduate of Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts, and a homely boy who stands shoulder to shoulder with farmers in defence of rural interests. He is a gay activist and, at the same time, a deeply religious man involved in the life of the Church.

He was created in the ‘image and likeness’ of Daniel Rycharski, one of the most outstanding visual artists of his generation. It is his installation Fears that inspired the script written by Michał Oleszczyk, Łukasz Ronduda and Katarzyna Sarnowska – a story of tolerance and rejection, of faith, forgiveness and guilt that demands reparation. In Fears, the artists present the genesis of Rycharski’s moving installation, telling the story of a harassed young lesbian who took her own life and of an artist friend who tries to go through the process of mourning

Video embed

WSZYSTKIE NASZE STRACHY - oficjalny zwiastun

Spinning a tale of a gay man clashing with the homophobic Polish countryside, Ronduda and Gutt do not want to lead their viewers to journalistic barricades. They do not accuse the ‘backward’ countryside, they do not attack the Church, and they do not try to beautify characters representing minorities. Even the homophobia in Fears is not fervent or showy. It is more like passivity in the face of injustice and herd instinct rather than hatred. It is obscurantism that the characters inherit and imbue. But Ronduda and Gutt do not accuse them of it; they do not demand heroism, they do not expect wisdom. We are what we are, they seem to say in their film. And they ask whether we can live side by side despite this, in mutual respect and harmony with ourselves. There is no single answer – everyone must find one for themselves.

There is a scene in Ronduda and Gutt’s film which becomes a summary of their creative philosophy. During a press conference preceding an exhibition of his works, Daniel (Dawid Ogrodnik) sits silently behind a table. Whilst journalists argue about how to understand and interpret his works, he sinks into silence, unwilling to settle their dispute. The two directors of the film also adopt a similar position. Like their protagonist, they refuse to participate in the interpretation of their work: they do not add meanings or confirm conjectures. They suspend their story in mid-sentence, in understatement, in a moment of doubt. Their film is first and foremost an artistic act, not a journalistic one. It is not a debate but a private, sincere story, one that does not expect applause and pats on the back. Gutt and Ronduda are not interested in ideological warfare but in the existential truth of an artist seeking an outlet for his own sensitivity...

This is also characteristic of Ronduda’s cinema, as he has already made a name for himself as a restrained director, more likely to reach for a half-whisper than a shout. It doesn’t matter whether it is a story of an eccentric performer, two Warsaw artists in an uneasy relationship, or a gay Catholic artist – each time Ronduda looks at his characters with the same curiosity and understanding. He does not try to shock, and he himself does not pretend to be surprised, because he knows the world of his characters well. There is nothing sensational here, Ronduda seems to be saying.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Still from the film Fears, directed by: Łukasz Ronduda, Łukasz Gutt, 2021 Pictured: Maria Maj and Dawid Ogrodnik, photo by Jarosław Sosiński/SERC/Kino Świat

Picture image

wszystkie_nasze_strachy_jaroslaw_sosinski_4.jpg

And there is nothing sensational in Fears. Ronduda does not want to fish out and exaggerate spectacular images from reality but to look under its lining. Instead of multiplying scenes of brutal confrontations between homophobes and the LGBT, he looks into the eyes of his protagonist. He tries to understand where the burning fire within him comes from, what his faith means to him and why he does not give up in his fight with the local community. In this way, he manages to build a deep, moving portrait of a man who dares to face himself and confront his ‘fears’ – collective demons waiting to be ‘exorcised’.

The intellectual honesty of this film is impressive. Portraying the provincial world, Ronduda and Gutt do not assume the pose of an anthropologist who enters the ‘indigenous’ people. In Fears, we do not find a paternalistic tone or simplifications, which were abundant in Szumowska’s ‘provincial’ Mug, to name just one work. The makers of Fears do not ‘otherise’ their characters for a moment. They try to understand them, even those who do not deserve empathy. By telling the story of a homophobic community, which reacts with aggression towards what is alien and untamed, Ronduda points to the psychological mechanism that leads to the escalation of aggression. He looks into the eyes of those who hide their sense of guilt and awareness of sins they have committed behind aggressive shouts. It is, after all, easier that way.

All this makes Ronduda and Gutt’s film seductive with its truthfulness. Especially real are the people – internally fractured, inconsistent, sometimes small and ridiculous – as well as the province around them. This truth is also conveyed by the actors – Dawid Ogrodnik as Daniel Rycharski rejects mimicry (we know since The Last Family that he is great at it) in favour of creating an autonomous portrait. He does not pretend to be Rycharski but creates his own Daniel. The supporting cast is excellent – the enigmatic but charismatic Andrzej Chyra as a father who does not agree with his son’s sexuality and the excellent Maria Maj as a deeply religious grandmother who does not judge her grandson but simply loves him. Maj brings harshness and tenderness to this character, and above all, on-screen truth.

Fears, with superb cinematography by Łukasz Gutt (awarded at the Gdynia Film Festival), is a film as modest as it is bold, not shying away from strong metaphors (from Eden to the tree of knowledge and the Stations of the Cross), and at the same time immersed in realism and the world of its characters. Awarded the Golden Lion for the best film of 2021, Fears is in fact one of the most sophisticated and subtle Polish films of recent months, or perhaps even years.

Fears. Directed by Łukasz Ronduda, Łukasz Gutt. Screenplay: Michał Oleszczyk, Łukasz Ronduda, Katarzyna Sarnowska. Cinematography: Łukasz Gutt. Starring: Dawid Ogrodnik, Maria Maj, Andrzej Chyra, Agata Łabno, Piotr Trojan, Jacek Poniedziałek, Oskar Rybaczek. Polish premiere: 05.11.2021