European Films

Polish debut director Slawomir Fabicki hits hard with his forceful debut feature Z odzysku (Retrieval), about a young boxer who tries to do right but gets ever further caught up in the criminal underworld. The film takes some time to get going, but once firmly on the rails it never again takes the time to  even breathe, sketching a firm, cohesive and compelling portrait of human decency in the face of the world’s ugliness. Though not particularly original, the film demands to be reckoned with because of several key scenes that are almost flawlessly executed. Z odzysku will be a logical choice for festivals and DVD distribution, with scattered arthouse engagements possible.

 

Wojtek (Antoni Pawlicki) is a decent kid from Silesa who trades in the dangerous work in a cement pit for a more comfortable job in security at a local disco, on the instigation of the disco's nice-guy boss Dariusz (Jacek Braciak), who has seen him box. Wojtek even gets help in finding a nice apartment for him and his illegal Ukrainian immigrant lover Katja (Natalya Vdovina) and her son Andryi (Dimitri Melnichuk). When Dariusz takes Wojtek under his wing, he soon discovers that Dariusz also makes money as a loan shark, for which he is expected to do “security” as well, forcing the people who have not paid back in time to do so. 

 

Fabicki, who co-wrote the screenplay with Denijal Hasanovic and Marek Pruchniewski, creates some strongly resonant scenes in the more general framework of their story of a decent man forced into criminal behaviour. A first turning point comes in a scene involving an abandoned house and several dogs and is extremely well executed; it illustrates perfectly why Wojtek would want to quit his job and also why this is so difficult. His relationship with Katja and her son is also treated gently, with the fact that she works at a peepshow never exploited; the first time we see her there she holds a vacuum cleaner of all things! A late scene in which Wojtek visits Andryi to offer him a pair of boxing gloves is really all that is needed to fully understand their relationship, underlining that the writers and the director are capable of an economy that is missing in the film's opening section.

 

Thematically, Z odzysku is strongly connected to the recent Jacques Audiard-directed arthouse hit De battre mon coeur s'est arête (The Beat that my Heart Skipped), in which a young man played by Romain Duris had major difficulties in reconciling his desire for a classical music career with his work in the Parisian underworld (the film itself was a remake of James Toback's Fingers). Pawlicki does not have the same intensity as Duris and seems physically slight for a boxer, though he really nails that puppy-dog look that makes his character’s essential goodness utterly believable. The same could be said of Fabicki and the film itself: it may not be the best ever example of its story, but some its core components are so well-handled that the film is more than a cut above your average arthouse film.