High Water – Jan Holoubek, Bartłomiej Ignaciuk | #film

High Water – Jan Holoubek, Bartłomiej Ignaciuk

Its panache makes ‘High Water’ one of the most impressive Polish series of recent decades. It is only a pity that the spectacular story of the 1997 flood is rife with screenwriting shortcomings and dramaturgic holes.

The ‘millennium flood’, which hit Wrocław and other cities in south-western Poland in 1997, became one of the most important events of the decade. For those born in the 1970s and 1980s, it was one of their most important generational experiences. Despite this, it has not been properly commemorated in Polish culture. High Water (Wielka woda), initiated by Wroclaw-native producer Anna Kępińska and filmed a quarter of a century after the events, effectively fills this gap.

Its protagonist is Jaśmina Tremer (Agnieszka Żulewska), a hydrologist in her thirties who arrives in her home town to warn the local authorities of an impending flood. In Wrocław A.D. 1997, she has to clash with a bunch of incompetent politicians and somewhat moribund scientific authorities. Her only ally turns out to be an old acquaintance, Jakub Marczak (Tomasz Schuchardt), once a militant anarchist and now a respectable gentleman with a moustache and political ambitions. It is he who will start the fight to prepare the city for the inevitable disaster. The reunion of former lovers will become an excuse to rip open old wounds and confront demons that neither of them wanted to remember existed.

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Wielka Woda | Oficjalny zwiastun | Netflix

That is because in Jan Holoubek’s and Bartłomiej Ignaciuk’s series, it is not the flood that is the main character and the theme of the story, but peoples’ lives – family complications, long-standing grievances, sins that need to be atoned for. The flood is only a backdrop which triggers an avalanche of events, but it itself becomes merely an effective decoration.

Even before High Water debuted on the TV screen, it was compared to Craig Mazin and Johan Renck’s HBO series Chernobyl, in which the nuclear power plant disaster became a metaphor for the disintegration of the rotten USSR. However, High Water does not rise up to such a comparison. The series’ creators are neither as ambitious as the makers of Chernobyl, nor is their story as precise and thoughtful as to compete with the HBO production. In telling the story of the ‘millennium flood’, the creators of High Water instrumentalise it, making it merely an element of the scenery against which the personal adventures of the protagonists play out.

Kasper Bajon and Kinga Krzemińska, who are responsible for the scripts of all the episodes, skilfully unravel the arcs of the series’ characters. So, we have a young lady scientist who has to reconcile with her mother (Anna Dymna) in order to mature into motherhood herself. And an ex-anarchist who has sold his ideals for a political career, but when he is confronted with the falseness of the political world, he rebels against its rules. Finally, there is the third protagonist, fifty-year-old Andrzej (Ireneusz Czop) struggling to save his fatherland from a flood and confronting a much more painful loss. It’s all slick, well thought out and made in line with the screenwriting textbooks.

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Wielka Woda | Za kulisami postprodukcji | Netflix

And yet, it is hard to resist the impression that the story told in High Water is treated pretextually by the filmmakers themselves, and that the personal dramas of the characters, although understandable, fail to engage. One of the reasons why High Water leaves the viewer indifferent is the way the main character of the story has been created. Although Jaśmina is brave and feisty, it is difficult to empathise with her. For Agnieszka Żulewska creates on screen a character that is simply unsympathetic. A former drug addict reacting with aggression to everything and everyone, she does not seem the most appropriate guide for the series’ universe. Her on-screen partner is much better – played by Tomasz Schuchardt, the local politician is a character of flesh and blood, trying to save his own town and, above all, his daughter. And it is Schuchardt’s daring performance that saves High Water – it makes us forgive the creators for dramatic shortcomings and script shortcuts (such as the plot of the drug addict from the neighbourhood).

Thumbnail — Zdjęcie z planu serialu "Wielka woda" w reżyserii Jana Holoubeka, 2022, fot. Robert Palka/Netflix

This is also helped by the realisation skills of the team of Jan Holoubek and Bartłomiej Ignaciuk. High Water impresses with its panache and craftsmanlike precision. Bartłomiej Kaczmarek’s cinematography and Marek Warszewski’s production design are superb, the group scenes impress with their credibility and the series’ costumes transport us to the second half of the 1990s.

The special effects do not disappoint either. In order to create a believable image of a natural disaster on the screen, the filmmakers not only used the latest advances in computer post-production, but also built full-size facades of several townhouses on an old municipal swimming pool. It pays off on the screen – the serialised High Water is a work that producers with much deeper pockets, and cinematographers with more developed infrastructure, would not be ashamed of. It is only a pity that the viewing pleasure is spoilt by script inconsistencies and psychological banality that creeps in.

High Water (Wielka Woda), directed by: Jan Holoubek, Bartłomiej Ignaciuk. Screenplay: Kasper Bajon, Kinga Krzemińska. Cinematography: Bartłomiej Kaczmarek. Set design: Marek Warszewski. Costumes: Weronika Orlińska. Starring: Agnieszka Żulewska, Tomasz Schuchardt, Ireneusz Czop. Premiere: 05.10.2022.

Netflix