The Peasants

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! :)

My take is not yet another "tale of young woman breaking bonds and social..." thing. The "young woman" narrative is a red herring, in my opinion. It misses the point. Every charactet in this amazing feat of acting, art, and production is us. We are all "peasants", more or less. That reflects the soul of the early 20th century book by Raymont. From the snarling biddies, to the destructive frustrated son of the rich landowner, to Jagna, all are laboring under the peasant burden of delusion and superstition. Some do so nobly, others make their mission that of violently curating and exorcising a scapegoat.

Let me start of with the fact that the visuals are absolutely stunning. Im still shoked that a movie was made with oil paintings and to know its a polish movie fills my heart with pride. The breathteaking views of polish conutryside really filled my heart with joy and nostalgia. The lighting, colors, and placement of everything in each scene was extremely nicely done and helped deliver the movie through visuals. Accompanied by dynamic, imaginative music it was quite the pleasure to watch.

It was such a raw movie, showing off so much polish culture unfiltered. The beautiful and the ugly. Dancing, music, ordinary life with lingering judgment, envy and hate. I have not personally read the original book so i cannot judge this movie in regards to it but im sure its a really good adaptration and ill definitely give the book a read.

Watching the movie you wonder whose in the right and eventually realize that its no one. All characters are flawed in different ways, and thats whats so beautiful and real about this.

Why didnt i give it 10/10? Well as much as i loved it i dont think i fully connected with its story on a personal level, and at moments i couldn't really wrap my head around the plot.

I'm however really confident about this movie going to the Oscars.

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.

Stunning and heartbreaking, highly reccomended!

Beautiful story about love, jealousy and greed. The movie was brilliantly acted, brilliant music (I still hear it in my ears).

I always loved Reymont's book, TV-series from 2973 was excellent, but this adaptation stole my heart, for sure.

I was afraid whether I would like the painted film, it turned out that it does not interfere with watching it at all, especially that the characters are not as distorted as in Vincent, you can recognize the actors. Btw it was a great pleasure to recognize the paintings woven into the movie, polish painters (Chelmonski, Falat), but also Vermeer, van Gogh, Munch.