Film still, photo: Spectator
The three sisters live on one of the highest floors of a tall shabby building. They are nothing like the typical Chekhov protagonists who yearn for a better, more just world, one that is ideal. Three women, all older than 50, they seem to accept the dullness of their everyday lives. Cooped up in their four walls sometimes they divulge in sentimental, though ghastly memories. They justify the inertia of their lives by the presence of Robert (Rafał Mohr), the handicapped son of one of the sisters.
Three Sisters T is a dark comedy with elements of a psychological thriller based on a true story. It tells the story of Robert, a 35 year old man who since his birth has always been looked after by his mother and her sisters and is still treated like a child. The family cares about appearances and their reputation, but behind that façade, evil lurks. It turns out that their apartment is the nest of three degenerated women, murderers and perverts constantly abusing Robert physically and mentally. When a young and innocent hairdresser named Marianna shows up, Robert finds the will power to leave the nightmare he has been living in.
According to the director, the multilayered film with rich dialogues form a sort of cruel caricature of the absorption of the male kind by the feminine element, "I am award of the fact that the film may bring up extreme feelings. That is the kind of film I wanted to make. My starting point was a true, very tragic fact and the rest is pure confabulation, my vision of human nature in a specific place of inner battle with his own demons".
Three Sisters T is Maciej Kowalewski’s feature debut and an adaptation of his play entitled Three Sisters Trupek / Trzy siostrzyczki Trupki performed in Warsaw Teatr na Woli in 2010. Presenting a tale about enslaved masculinity, the work is based on elements of the theatre of the Absurd, appearing as a psychological thriller and a dark comedy. Kowalewski shows a drive towards the surreal. While the aging women demons abuse and kill men, the male kind is pushed into any sort of role assigned to them by the matriarchal society. They can be lovers, hard working earners who support their families or children deprived of their own personalities. Any attempt to escape their roles, leads to their demise.
The screenplay to Kowalewski’s creation was inspired by a true story of a multiple homicide. The director took the liberty of imagining what happened before the crimes and what lead to them. Just like the slow and long-term decay of the planet, he claims that in the film, dying is a continuous act, not something that happens in one instant.
"The director’s visual style is charactarised by thought through sloppiness," Anna Bielak writes for the website Stopklatka, "the camera moves in an unconventional way […] and peeks at the protagonists as if it were filming a reality show. Three Sisters T irritate and annoy in many ways. But apparently that’s how they were meant to be. The film was meant to fluster and through people out of their habits and comfort zone, their illusions. It was meant to be place in which the evil that lurks over the world is gathered and extruded of its shell".
In this space four actors battle out their wars. Lotka, Wanda and Sabina played by Bogusława Schubert-Massoc, Małgorzata Różniatowska, and Ewa Szykulska respectively seduce and scare off on the screen. They resemble the witches from Macbeth and remind of the Three Sisters from Chekhov. They are macabre, boisterous, auto ironic and horrible at the same time. In the role of Robert, Rafał Mohr is wrapped up in stupor , powerlessness and is suffocating under the overprotective women.
Maciej Kowalewski is an actor, scriptwriter, writer and theatre director. He graduated from the Higher State Theatre School in Kraków. He was the director of Warsaw’s Teatr Na Woli. His 2006 play Miss Hiv chich he wrote and directed was said to be one of the season’s most controversial premieres and earned him an award for directing at the Exhibition of Modern Polish Art in Warsaw and during the Modern Art Festival Raport in Gdynia.
The film appears on screens around Poland on October 26th 2012.
- Three Sisters T. / Trzy siostry T., Poland 2011, 85 minutes. Script and directing: Maciej Kowalewski, cinematography: Hubert Komerski, art. direction: Piotr Rybkowski, costumes: Katarzyna Lewińska, music: Marek Dziedzic, Cast: Rafał Mohr (Robert), Bogusława Schubert-Massoc (Lotka, Robert’s aunt), Małgorzata Rożniatowska (Wanda, Robert’s mother), Ewa Szykulska (Sabina, Robert’s aunt), Natalia Szyguła (hairdresser), Izabela Kuna, Agnieszka Roszkowska, Remigiusz Grzela, Witold Zmitrowicz, Ewa Kowalewska, Janusz Chabior, Łukasz Simlat. Production: Tramway Film Studio, Cuckooegg Productions, Coproduction: Teatr na Woli, Distribution: Spectator.
Sources: translated Bartosz Staszczyszyn's article for culture.pl, PISF, Tofifest, European Film Promotion
Editor: Marta Jazowska