Imago

A raw punk-spirited energy fuels Olga Chajdas’ second feature which, even more than her first, Nina, concerns itself with a woman fully embracing herself as an adult within the world. Lena Góra both co-wrote the screenplay with Chajdas and stars as Ela - a character based loosely on Góra’s own mother. The youngest daughter of a large family, Ela is prone to mental health episodes that - in the late Eighties Poland when this is set - see her institutionalised in a hospital where the residents sport labels on their backs identifying them with unpleasant epithets including “glutton”, “retard” and “lunatic”.

Chajdas puts us into Ela’s headspace near the start as we see the camera rotate slightly, as if affected by Ela’s mental state. In the hospital, she calls her boyfriend Tomek (Mateusz Wieclawek) and is soon leaving with him. This is just the start of a free-wheeling plunge into Ela’s life on the post-punk musical fringes of Poland’s Tricity - an area comprising a trio of cities including the shipbuilding hub of Gdansk. Like Ela’s life, the city is also in a state of flux as Communism locks horns with Lech Wałęsa’s Solidarity.

The atmosphere of the clubs in Tricity is well realised by Chajdas and the energetic camerawork of Tomasz Naumiuk, wreathed in smoke and drenched in sweat. The edgy vibe is fueled by the dadaist influenced bands, whose ‘songs’ hover somewhere between rock and performance art. It is here that she meets egoistic painter Stach (Michal Balicki), pirouetting between liaisons with him and the more sweetly docile Tomek. She also falls in with a band, which finds increasing fame. The band’s music, written by rock star Andrzej Smolik is well-realised by the cast and generates a combative emotional undercurrent although whether quite so much of it is needed is debatable, with the film occasionally feeling over-indulgent in terms of its aesthetic to the detriment of its story.

Through the mayhem, a second story is being told, of the relationship between Ela and her mother (Boguslawa Schubert) - a story that gradually develops as the young woman’s life also takes an unexpected turn. This element, though achieving poignancy by the end of the film, feels drowned out in places by the maelstrom of Ela’s day to day existence, although the picture painted of the Poland of the period is never less than vibrantly, challengingly in our face.