Barczyk recovers the uprising from the collective amnesia, but he has his own story to tell. He is neither interested in factual material nor a film crib-sheet about its reasons, course and consequences. In his film, we don't see battle scenes and the adventures of brave soldiers. Barczyk invites viewers into the world of his imagination and shows the uprising as a duel of telepaths – the sinister Doctor Abuse hired by the Prussian army and groups of Polish patriots who confront him. They carry out an ongoing struggle for the soul and mind of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a Polish pianist and political activist who travels from the USA to Poland with an important political mission.
Barczyk measures up with the Polish tradition of thinking about history, and at the same time shows how historical myths are born – built on half-truths and total fiction. In the ritual dispute between romanticism and positivism the director takes the side of the latter. The type of patriotism he describes is about taking responsibility for building the state, rather than shedding blood for the homeland and waving lofty slogans.
In one of the most important scenes of the film, the character played by Jan Peszek delivers the motto of Influence directly from the screen: the white and red of the Polish flag are no longer associated with innocence and the blood shed in its defence, but have begun to remind of strawberries and whipped cream. With this somewhat empty phrase Barczyk presents his vision of patriotism: a modern one, liberated from the shackles of messianism and the romantic love of blood.
The director of Influence consistently avoids an exalted tone and every now and then pierces the dramatic balloon with a pin of irony. Unfortunately, this does not make his film a coherent and well-told story. Paradoxically, Influence turns out to be yet more proof of the fact that Polish cinema's problem is money. In most cases it is lacking, thus well-written scenarios settle for slim budgets and are implemented for half the price and half the resources. In the Barczyk's case, the problem is different – with the record sum of 24 million zloty at his disposal, the director focused so much on the visual side of the film that he totally forgot about the characters.
The personalities which we watch in Influence are barely sketched, devoid of character, empty. It is hard to cheer for them, as we do not know anything about them. Even the story about the political mission of Paderewski (Jan Frycz), which is key to the whole movie, remains untold. We do not know why his mission is so important that telepaths have engaged in a mortal combat for his life and freedom on both sides of the barricade. Thus there is no way to worry about their fight, no matter how spectacularly it is presented.
It seems like each of Barczyk’s actors perform in a slightly different film. Crispin Glover as Doctor Abuse and the outstanding Artur Krajewski as his opponent pull Influence in the direction of a film tribute to German expressionism cinema, Jan Peszek and James Gierszał stick to the realistic convention, while the mannerist Sandra Korzeniak leans towards bourgeois comedy. Due to this, Influence runs in several directions.
In Barczyk’s film there are a few brilliantly directed scenes – at least the one when Abuse is trapped in someone else’s dream. Karina Kleszczewska’s camera moves spectacularly, the performance design and costumes are impressive, and the special effects look great. It is a pity that the successful individual scenes do not make up a coherent story, and Influence constantly speeds up and slows down. It turns towards the fast-paced story of the uprising, only to later get bogged down in pretentious theatricality.
Barczyk, who in his earlier movies – the debut I Look at You, Mary or the wonderful Transformations – created subtle psychological portraits and told modest stories about people, this time succumbs to on-screen effects at the expense of psychological truth. The artistic beauty of his super production is impressive but it turns out to be intellectually shallow, a sometimes beautiful shell, which is, however, hollow.