Camponeses

"Chlopi " (The Peasants) is a cinematic painted masterpiece telling us captivating story about search of love and happiness in 19th century rural area. In this picture music, breathtaking visuals, and dance come together. The soundtrack stirs emotions, the visuals capture rustic beauty, and intricate dance sequences add depth to the story. This film showcases the power of art forms to create an immersive and emotionally resonant experience, transporting the audience to a world where music, visuals, and dance are integral to the characters' lives. A sensory delight that leaves a lasting impression.

Sometimes you can appreciate the artistry involved in process of filmmaking, but not fully enjoy the experience of watching the actual movie.

This is precisely how I feel after watching the official submission of Poland for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 96th Academy Awards in 2024 titled: 'THE PEASANTS' ('Chlopi').

Synopsis: "Jagna is a young woman determined to forge her own path in a late 19th century Polish village - a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by adherence to colorful traditions and deep-rooted patriarchy."

Back in 2017 another Dutch -Polish production 'Loving Vincent' (story of Vincent Van Gogh) was made, with similar painting technique, roughly by the same Polish team. Which encouraged them to create Polish based story. 'Loving Vincent' received a huge amount of good critiques and was admired for its artistry. With this type of technique comes tremendous amount of paint work as each film frame (in PAL system 24 frames per second) needed to be painted over film footage. The reason why this technique worked in this Dutch production is that the subject of the film was about famous, tragic painter, so stylistically and subject wise there was a artistic coherence.

After watching'THE PEASANTS' I was wondering if this painting technique was not too much of a distraction and couldn't help to wonder if without it this film wasn't better off just having a standard color correction.

To be fully immersed in the story and appreciate the actual acting performances, we watch micro body expressions of the actors, judging quality of their characterization by how well the non verbal cues mix with what they say, so that every micro expression specially on their face and eyes, tells us subconsciously what actor in character things.

In 'THE PEASANTS' as camera moves around the whole picture constantly vibrates, just as it happens during psychedelic trip the colors morph and vibrate. The beauty of psychedelic trip is that they are relatively short and intense. 'THE PEASANTS' feels like a almost 2 hour psychedelic trip, which might leave the audience little nauseated. Constant movement in the frame, can potentially create an uneasy feeling in the viewer.

As much as I wanted to love this film, by the end I was happy I lasted till the end, having moments where I felt disconnected from the experience.

To be fair, It must be said all the performances are very solid and again this film is full of masterful work and yet the technique used feels little gimmicky and to be honest in the day and age of phone apps, which add cartoon or painting correction to the video footage, it isn't anymore that unique

To conclude 'THE PEASANTS' is a truly potentially tragic and emotional story, which in my opinion, due to painting technique looses what makes this story interesting. The emotionality is getting lost, which is such a pity.

I do however salute all the filmmakers for the amount of ground breaking work they have done, it's just for my taste, as well as the Academy (sadly 'THE PEASANTS' wasn't chosen to be nominated) seems to agree with my assessment.

I still do highly recommend it due to its artistic value.

An adaptation of a Nobel prize-winning novel from the makers of Loving Vincent using the same rotoscoped oil painting animation style, that's enough to be interested in this. But with the experience from Loving Vincent, they set out to make it even better. With dynamic camera movements that are meant to give an experience rooted in Polish culture and village life, this movie does an incredible job of immersing the viewers in this world. Kamila Urzedowska is incredible as Jagna, the village beauty, whose life is decided by others at every step yet can't take away her free-spiritedness, even with all the shackles. Even though, the story is a classic European village tragedy, the music and animation take it to another level. That ending sequence is just so incredibly shot and animated that it's impossible to not be moved after watching this. Much of the film would've been a lot harder to watch if it was live-action, even though it is quite hard even in this rotoscoped animated style.

Definitely the best Polish film I've watched this year. I left the cinema in love and i did think about this movie quite a lot. The music rang in my headphones non stop and I replayed the dance scenes in my head probably a thousand times. The costumes, the image of the Polish countryside, references to the Chelmonski's paintings, everything, it just created the most beautiful image that stays with you for a long time. Maybe just i did imagine Jagna to be strong woman, not as tragic, but i like her character as well as the rest. I think the cating was infallible. I highly recommend visiting the cinema for that one! :)

Every man IS a pig, and every woman too, in this adaptation of Wladyslaw Reymont's Nobel Prize-winning novel about life in a 19th Century village. A young woman, Jagna, digs for gold when she marries a wealthy and much older widower. When she continues seeing the man's son on the side, she gets in trouble with both father and son. Jagna tries to chart her own path. "I don't need help from men," she says "I've had enough of their help already."

This resplendent and heart rending live-action film was created with 40,000 frames of oil paintings. It features revamped Polish folk songs, compelling dialogue, and raucous, energetic dance sequences. The detailed artwork adds contrast, light, color, and emotion to the performances of the actors. It was tough for the actors who had to perform before green screens sometimes, but they persevered.

The husband-and-wife team of directors were present for the world premiere screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. DK dedicated the film to her father who supported her, and to "all the women who are making difficult choices and standing for who they are." The directors explored the use of artificial intelligence but thought it lacked human touch, sensibility, and the element of surprise. The composer who did an incredible job of adapting Polish folk music to fit the film's format, jokingly told the directors, "I spent more time with you than with my wife, so sorry if she doesn't talk to you anymore." The film took four years to make.