DOSKONALA POPOLUDNIE (THE PERFECT AFTERNOON)
Poland, 2005, 91 minutes, Colour.
Michal Szernecki, Magdalena Poplawska, Jerzy Stuhr, Gosia Dobrowolska.
Directed by Przenyslaw Wojciszek.
A Perfect Afternoon is an entertaining Polish film, a slice of life from Warsaw at the beginning of the 21st century.
The perfect afternoon is meant to be a wedding and the wedding reception. However, the film focuses on a young couple and their relationship, their characters and their relationship, especially with their parents. The question is about inviting parents to the wedding and the reception as well as the expectations from the parents. The couple want a civil marriage, there is a question of a religious marriage. There are problems when the groom invites his mother and then his absent father and the clash between the two as they arrive at the wedding. The bride has a difficulty with her father who is a butcher, devoted to meat and she is a vegetarian. (And her parents bring sausages as the wedding gift.)
The film is gently incisive in its presentation of character as well as of situations.
While the film features upcoming actors, two Polish veteran stars are featured, Jerzy Stuhr, prominent actor and director as well as Gosia Dobrowolska who spent some time in Australia and featured in such films as Silver City, Around the World in Eighty Ways and a number of films by Paul Cox.
1.A picture of Poland at the beginning of the 21st century? Young people? The older generation and their experience of the Communist era? Changes? Prosperity? Possibilities for living in Poland? An upbeat patriotic ending?
2.The Warsaw sequences, the countryside, the other cities? The changes in fifteen years – and cities not changing? The authentic atmosphere?
3.The title, the culmination of all the preparations for the wedding, a happy wedding afternoon?
4.Mikolai and Anna, their relationship, the preparations for the wedding, wanting a secular wedding? The reaction against the church? Their publishing house, their first book, the wry comments about its success? Their searching for another manuscript? Their friend, his futuristic novel? The visit to him, persuading him, his agreement? The irony of his getting the offer from Warsaw, their returning and their reaction against him, his giving back the money? Their searching for the manuscript, finding the ideal novel, going to visit the author, his admiration for their other book, the agreement? The happy prospect of success in the publishing?
5.Mikolai and Anna and their relationship, their characters, backgrounds, relationship with their parents, Mikolai and his leaving his mother, his absent father, inviting them to the wedding? Anna and her father as a butcher, her being vegetarian, her reactions? Her father and mother bringing them sausages as gifts? The eating of the sausages – and her resistance?
6.Anna’s parents, the humorous comment on changes? The butcher and his beginnings, prosperity, shop, staff? His genial wife? The down-payment on the new car, withdrawing it, trusting them and giving the money for the publishing firm? His wife reminding him of his beginnings?
7.Mikolai and his parents? Andrzej and his not being willing to give the interview, travelling to Warsaw, looking for Maria? Finding her, her reaction? Their history together, her leaving him? His giving the lift to the young man on the way and explaining himself? The cinematic style for the meetings between Maria and Andrzej? The close-ups, the dialogue? Maria and her new life, her work, relationships? Their discussions, her expressing her hurt? The meals, her unwillingness to go, her relenting? Travelling together, sharing, remembering? Her hurts, his hurting the people that she loved? The Solidarity background? Her ringing her boyfriend, his coming, the clash between the two men? The clash with the boyfriend, her getting out of the car? Andrzej driving, Maria in the train, getting out? Their meeting, his falling in the mud? The rekindling of their love? The prospects for the future? Their arrival, the jokes, meeting the in-laws?
8.The authors, the publishers, contracts, the risk of a publishing company?
9.The friend, the colleague in the publishing, his son, the meetings, presence at the wedding?
10.The video, the initial interviews, Andrzej refusing? Mikolai and his being persuaded? The interviews, the glimpses? The black and white photography? The television companies not interested? The best marriage video? The videoing of the interviews with the authors? Of the ceremony, of the celebrations?
11.The perfect afternoon, everybody gathered for the wedding, the photo at the wedding table – and the prospect of happy lives and prosperity in Poland?
