No. 84 (2021) NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN (Sniegu juz nigdy nie bedzie) Polish Film Fest. OCT. 17th.

 

Film No. 84 (2021)  October 17th.  6:30 PM   Cinema 1.  LUNA,  Leederville. 

"Most people around here only care about their looks and whether they are looking better than others"(Some words of wisdom expounded to Zhenia as he comes to terms with his new environment and clients).

A Polish satire, that plays out like a fairy-tale with a series of sociological themes that ask questions of modern society. This is the sentence I'd use to best describe the very handsome NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN; Poland's submission for best International film at the 2021 Oscars.

So what sort of comment do directors Malgorzata Szumowska and Michael Englert, both prominent Polish cinephiles, make about the society they know so well through NEVER GONNA? Well, I'm not totally sure but it has something to do with the repression (emotionally) of the Polish middle class. And just maybe it might take some massage and a bit of magic, initiated by a Russian outsider, to help them snap out of it!!

We learn early on that Zhenia (Alec Utgoff), is a Russian visitor originating from Chernobyl no less. He has gifted hands (Masseuse) and mind. We wander with him as he carries his portable massage table for what seems like endless kilometres until he arrives at a middle-class compound. A compound of white McMansions. He is viewed as a saint, who has arrived to deliver a physical and mental invigoration via his unique, magical, wellness therapy. His clients are a potpourri of people weighed down emotionally, by life's baggage.    

The pallet chosen for each scene adds to the mystique of the film's message. One minute we witness, via drone, a pine plantation being dismembered, a symbol of climate change. Next we are running (dog's eye view) down a road, to nowhere in particular. Some of the images are random but it's all a part of the film's flow. The narrative is less important than its feel. Zhenia, as the centrepiece, is never a threat even though his behaviour is odd. He is needed more and more by his self-centred, needy clients. 

Film is entertainment; film is messaging; film is art. NEVER GONNA encapsulates all these descriptions. Is the core of Zhenia energised by the radiation he was exposed to when he was young? The nuclear core so easily melted in Chernobyl in 1986 has transformed Zhenia. An observation based more on guess-work than fact. And still I've told you little about NEVER GONNA RAIN AGAIN. If, for that reason alone, it intrigues you, then try to catch a showing. You might enjoy it as I did. 10GUMS.