Welcome to 2nd semester!
Hi everyone!
Well, this Christmas Holliday gone pretty fast, but it was so nice to have a rest, to hang out with a friends, to cook a lot and sleep a lot! I am so glad that I have choose to have little bit of travel and went to York in England as well.
I really want to tell you more about what has inspired me for that short period of time the most.
But first, a little backstory.
I am person who really love music especially soundtracks, because you can forgot about your own issues and turn on your own imagination. So, few weeks ago when I had a train from London to Leicester my playlist put me new recommendation of soundtracks. There was something so familiar to me, something what I always know.
I was so interested by the melody, so I google more about where is it from. To my surprise, The Peasants was released literally during this period in some cinemas in London. Of course I took the ticket.
"This time, the source material is The Peasants, the 1924 Nobel prize-winning epic novel by Władysław Reymont. This is a key issue. Condensing a huge, sweeping story that weaves together Polish traditions and national identity into a two-hour film proves to be challenging, and the result feels a little soapy and sensationalist at times, with lots of covert rutting in haystacks and bodices in permanent disarray. And the film is a match for Lars von Trier’s Dogville in its grimly relentless approach to misogyny and sexual violence. A disconcertingly beautiful picture about the ugliness of humanity." (Wendy Ide, 2023)
I was fascinated by the unusual animation technique used in the film. It feels like you're watching a painting come to life, because the whole film appears as if it were painted. Earlier I described that the melody from the soundtrack gave me a very familiar feeling. Well, my home country is Ukraine and the film is about Polish culture, which is quite close to mine. I felt something very close to the motifs of our culture and its beauty.
Despite all the beauty and passion, it's quite a painful film. For me, it shows the cruelty that people are able to do, because the film ends in a painful, difficult, cruel way. I was amazed by the indifference of those who spoke of love, but allowed incredible and unjust cruelty to wake up and attack a single person.
"It’s a familiar parable of the tension between private desire and public moralising, told through enjoyable but conventional melodramatic gestures. The real artistry, of course, is meant to lie in the experimental animation. At first the effect is indeed beguiling, especially in the film’s arresting folk-dance set pieces: each moment initially seems to modify and re-reveal itself, presenting a mesmerising world in constant flux. But the spell breaks as soon as your eyes adjust to the actual style of painting on show." (Annabel Bai Jackson,2023)
The images, thoughts, words, and feelings stayed in my head for a long time after the screening. This film inspired me with its beauty and shocked me with its cruelty. This film gives you strong feelings, that's the reason why you should watch it.
References:
Bai Jackson, A. (2023). The Peasants: an Epic Polish Novel Is Brought to Life in This Beguiling hand-painted Animation. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/peasants-epic-polish-novel-brought-life-this-beguiling-hand-painted-animation [Accessed 9 Jan. 2024].
Ide, W. (2023). The Peasants Review – Disconcertingly Beautiful Animation of a Dark Polish Saga. The Observer . Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/dec/10/the-peasants-review-animation-polish-epic-wladyslaw-reymont-loving-vincent [Accessed 9 Jan. 2024].
LUXFORD, V. (2023). The Peasants review: Incredible Animation from the Loving Vincent Team. Available at: https://www.cityam.com/the-peasants-review-incredible-animation-from-the-loving-vincent-team/ [Accessed 9 Jan. 2024].
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