Movie Details
Movie: Fucking Bornholm (2022)
Director: Anna Kazejak-Dawid
Cast: Agnieszka Grochowska, Maciej Stuhr and Grzegorz Damiecki
Genres: Comedy/Drama
Release date: 6 May 2022
IMDB Rating: 5.9/10
Languages: Polish and English
Duration: 1h 39m
Trailer
Synopsis
Do you also sometimes come across a review or a short comment about a film that you have never heard of before, but after reading it you suddenly feel that it will be the best film for you and your current mood? I experience it quite regularly myself, but it is rarely the case with new ventures. And if, it’s mostly marginal things, either some festival in America, for which I then wait half a year before it arrives on digital platforms, or European work, which also first goes around all the festivals, and only then I maybe get to see it in small cinemas. Anyway, I’m writing this entire introduction because I’m kind of hoping that Fucking Bornholm might become just that for you.
The film by Polish director Anna Kazejak tells, at first glance, a rather ordinary story of two families who go on an ideal vacation to the Danish island of Bornholm. But as you probably already guessed from the title, things will not turn out exactly as everyone would like. In its style and themes, the film is somewhat reminiscent of last year’s The Worst Man in the World, only instead of a young single heroine we get an older married Maja (Agnieszka Grochowska), whose marriage is a bit at a standstill, most of her time is also taken up by taking care of the children, and to top it all off of his friend Dawid’s new younger girlfriend, who went on vacation instead of his ex-wife, her friend. Then, in addition, something happens that starts a chain of increasingly absurd events that will shake and fundamentally change the relationships of all the main characters.
In its essence, Fucking Bornholm is a pretty good example of marital moderation, which at times looks like a comedy, only to quickly turn into a depressing drama, from which it returns to the comedy. The carousel of emotions not only of the main character, however, has a decent pace throughout, practically zero dead spots, and you can rarely predict what will happen in five minutes. In her attempt to portray the differences between men’s and women’s perceptions of the same events and to show the viewer how far such a married woman-mother can go, whose tolerance for bullshit has long since overflowed, the director makes mild parody of the characters, whose behavior can sometimes seem extreme, thanks to the great acting performances of all involved and especially Grochowska, but Fucking Bornholm never loses its flair, nor its beautifully grotesque atmosphere, The Triangle of Sorrow is a more polished work after all).
The film helps itself with traditional craftsmanship, such as the inclusion of classical music to underline the overall chaos, but basically, it is more a demonstration that the director understands what is modern today and manages to successfully mix it in her film. Like when Jiří Havelka filmed the Owners, who are not too far from the heroes of Fucking Bornholm in their bickering. Last but not least, the film delights with more than one clash between Poles and Scandinavians, which depicts the humorous cultural animosity between these nations. But it’s details and little things like this that complete the film and make it a bit more complex than is usually the case in this genre.
However, the Polish drama won for me mainly because of how deeply human it can be even though its characters often seem ridiculous or annoying. Beneath the layer of bizarre and increasingly escalating conflicts, it tells about human relationships as they simply are and as you probably know them from your own life. Maybe not quite in the role of a mother in her forties, but her problems will still be good for you, and maybe even more familiar than the problems experienced by the lovely Juliet in The Worst Man in the World character Julie At least that’s how it was for me, and I appreciated Bornholm all the more for his insight into current relational structures.
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