Aftermath

Polish filmmakers once again showed off their skill and craft and made a brilliant drama that opens up a rather brutal Polish stigma from the war. And I must say that I’m really glad they opened it up even though the Polish don’t really like to be reminded of it. But national stigmata need to be accepted and people need to move on. If they are not talked about, they will remain unresolved and there will still be hatred within the nation. In our case, this was shown pretty well by Juraj Herz in Habermann’s Mill. War is simply a mess and it leads to the kind of stories you can see in this movie. After the movie was over, I wanted to give it five stars based on the topic itself. But I was a bit disappointed about the way they cut off the ending, and also when I thought about it, I had no idea how those tombstones got there in the first place. It was also quite funny that Franciszek kept wearing a suit everywhere he went… in the fields, in the marshes… couldn’t he have borrowed some regular clothes from his brother, like a pair of regular pants and a T-shirt? Apart from this, the movie is the bomb! Another gem made by Polish filmmakers and I guess it’s the most self-critical and most controversial topic I have seen them tackle so far. (21/01/2019)

Un film très étrange qu’il est vraiment difficile d’évaluer et de critiquer. Je m’attendais à quelque chose de complètement différent. La première demi-heure m’a semblé vive et prenante, m’inspirant de la curiosité par rapport au passé des personnages. Mais ensuite, les choses ont progressivement pris une autre tournure qui n’était plus tellement à mon goût et me laissait perplexe. Je comprends tout à fait pourquoi il est si important, pour les Polonais, de tourner des films ayant ce type de thème. Moi, en tout cas, le résultat ne m’a pas plu du tout, y compris le dénouement et le final. C’est certainement un film de qualité, mais ce n’était simplement pas ma tasse de thé. (25/03/2015)