I could not help not watching the Polish movie Portret podwójny. There was no other movie slotted around the same time, except for the movies that contested for the International Student Film Competition. I could not watch those of course. I’m not a judge or jury; I’m just judgmental.
For the first time ever, I had to sit in the first row of a theatre, which in itself is a very unpleasant experience without the unsteady handheld 35 MM camera used to film a movie in docu-style. After a while I started feeling as if I was the one holding the camera all the time, and I was not getting paid. “I am happy and I discovered the camera,” one of the subtitles read. That is among the several honest dialogues I found in Portret podwójny.
I felt like the pigeon at the end of the movie. The pigeon that drops down dead and after 114 min flies away alive. But I was glad to see that Warsaw is once again a beautiful city. Elzbieta Piekacz was very expressive as Ewa. She has not acted since and moved into photography. Here are samples of her new skills.
My modesty forces me to say that I could not understand the story. The movie earned some Jury Award for the director “for the search of new forms of expression” and some actor award for the Piekacz. I am not surprised by the former and approve of the latter.