'Squint your eyes' is a movie not only about a real friendship between a caretaker and a young girl but also between different characters in the movie.
It is set in contemporary Poland, in a rural area that has seen its better times. The main character, Jasiek is a burnt out teacher from big city. He is now a caretaker at a former soviet era co-op farm.
Many scenes refer to this post-communist era: the dilapidated police cruiser that gets stuck in mud; the old truck that should be in the museum but out of necessity is still used for transportation.
The rest of the plot deals with the question of what will happen to the girl and her former teacher.
This is a very slow moving film without any fast, shaky camera movements. You get to feel the passage of time and the heat of the summer. The colors are beautiful; they would have been even better had they used better equipment. On the other hand the low budget, forced the director to shoot all the scenes in one take. This turned out to be a blessing since every scene is well thought out.
The director, Andrzej Jakimowski just like Kieslowski takes great care of every detail. There is a scene, hard to believe at first, where the eagle flies away. It has at least two different meanings but what is amazing that something like that actually happened to the director's father.
If you like to see an uplifting, sometimes funny, sad and quirky movie and at the same time learn about the Einstein relativity theory (the scene on the bridge) you will not be disappointed.
