Best movies of the decade. 2

"The Dark House"
written by Lukasz Kosmicki and Wojciech Smarzowski
directed by Smarzowski

“A mysterious follow up” to my list of 10 “film energy clusters” is going to change:

Initially, I did want to pull off a nepotist maneuver and announce a new “film energy cluster” emerging from Poland calling it “The Integration.” The said integration would cover aesthetic as well as political. Such 2009 polish produced films as “The Reverse”(Andrzej Bart writer, Borys Lankosz director), “My Flesh My Blood” (writers: Grazyna Trela, Marcin Wrona, director Marcin Wrona) and (my absolute favorite ) “The Dark House”, mix the past with the now on political and personal levels. Each does it differently, each movingly and effectively. A superb “My Flesh My Blood” is the least political of them. Watch out for these titles on the festival circuit.

At the end I decided not to name the Polish films as the eleventh energy cluster of the decade for two reasons. These great films are actually announcing what’s potentially on the horizon since some are only now being released. More importantly, I can’t turn the blind eye on what has been going on in Russia for the last decade. I just love “The Day Watch” and appreciate “Euphoria”, “Return”, “The Island” or “Tulpan” just to name a few titles. However since “Tulpan” is a polish co-production and is shot by Jolanta Dylewska let’s just put the Russians and the Poles together. It will take some more finagling to come up with the encompassing category since the Poles mostly attack the political while the Russians probe the existential dimension. So for now let’s just call it “the new Slavic energy.”