Jakub Gierszal

Beyond Words

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Jakub Gierszal as Michael

The immigrant experience. Be honest, your heart just sank a little. Possibly because you’ve seen a few movies about it and you imagine you know what you’re about to be served when you hear that Beyond Words (Pomiędzy słowami, in the original Polish) is just such a thing. The tale of a sweet and blameless brown person having a hard time in a mostly white country. But that’s not what Urszula Antoniak’s fourth film is about at all. Instead it asks a rarely asked question – what of the not-so-sweet, not-so-blameless white person in another largely white country? Michael looks like a German but he isn’t one. He’s a Pole who immigrated to … Read more

The Lure

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Gold and Silver

So how about a horror movie featuring sexy mermaids who become disco singers in 1980s Poland? The Lure (Córki dancingu) is the film you’re after, so grabby as a concept that it went straight into the Criterion Collection after its release in 2015, which isn’t bad considering that’s where Kurosawa, Truffaut, Bergman and Claire Denis all hang out together. In the words of Criterion, this is where “important classic and contemporary films” are to be found. It’s also not bad for a debut feature, by Agnieszka Smoczyńska, who’s recently grabbed more attention with her The Silent Twins, another story of two isolated sisters leaning on each other for support. But not like this. … Read more