I know nothing of the source material so I can only comment on the film as a stand-alone piece of work. It opens with teenage Kuba in a group therapy session, called on to explain how he came to be there, and recounts his tale retrospectively leading up to this scene, with a short epilogue.
The depiction of a close and constrained family is convincing; the characterisations are warm and familiar although the short running time means they are strongly stereotyped; a lot of story is squeezed into a little over half an hour.
The narrative is episodic, particularly in the first ten minutes, but stops just short of being annoying. There is an affectionate family history being told, from childhood to the edge of adulthood, but not an easy time for Kuba.
The English subtitles were not great. A shame, because I had to freeze the action a couple of times to work out what they were trying to say, disrupting the flow even more.
Interesting camera angles and good use of light and shade create an atmosphere in which a slightly supernatural aspect seems natural and unobtrusive. My only real gripe was an early scene in which we are misdirected but the truth is not made clear: Kuba says he goes to hospital and the nurse assumes it is another fishing-related injury, but I don't remember finding out the actual cause.
The difficulty with shorts is that they either jemmy a whole story into their runtime or they cover only a limited part. This tries to do both; it is contained within the therapy session - I dismiss the ambiguous final scene - while encompassing a ten-year build-up. Charming but flawed.
