- Fourteen-year-old Jeremi is a YouTuber, and his father – an employee of the space agency – promises to show him the launch of a real rocket during the holidays. At the last minute, plans change and Jeremi is sent to his grandfather who lives in the countryside. To distract the boy from the Internet, his father prepares a special task for him. One morning, Jeremi receives a mysterious parcel containing… a robot giving him tasks to perform.
- The main roles in the film are played by: Andrzej Chyra, Jan Peszek, Magdalena Popławska, Halina Rasiakówna and Ezra Kos as Jeremi.
- “A Movie for Aliens” debuts on April 5 in Polish cinemas.
Childhood for Piotr Stasik – this was the case in his extravagant “Moths”, and this is now the case in “A Film for Aliens” – is an exceptionally difficult and demanding period, but also largely defining what will happen in a few or a dozen years. Who will the heroes be, who will they become? In “A Film for Aliens”, the director looks at this time sideways, drawing partly from his own experience, partly from observation, partly from fantasy.
The hero is fourteen-year-old Jeremi – played by the talented Ezra Kos – a boy who is somehow alienated, copes worse with communication with his peers and better with himself. Youtuber, fantastic, literally rocking the stars. There are reasons for this. Jeremi's father (great, as always, Andrzej Chyra) is an employee of a space agency. He's getting ready to launch a real rocket. A reason to be proud, to be famous at school. The problem is that Jeremi doesn't really have anyone to brag about.
Holidays, free time, Jeremi goes to his grandfather, but he really doesn't want to go there. Very very. However, his reluctance will turn into understanding, because he will discover a mirror image in his grandfather (Jan Peszek), almost unknown to him before and certainly not understood by him. We were like this just yesterday – like in a memorable hit from the 1980s.
Jeremi is a child of new times. He doesn't care about playing on the pitch or playing under the beater, he doesn't listen to the Good Old Marriage, and he would be very surprised if he received an invitation to a bonfire. Jeremi has other plans, he wants to be a famous TikToker like dozens of his peers. He feels that his father's profession and the launch of a new rocket could make him popular on the Internet. That's why he treats holidays with his grandfather as exile. That's why a letter from an allegedly alien civilization will prove to be such a big challenge for him.
Piotr Stasik comes from a documentary background. And you can feel it. When making the film, he adopted an unusual method. The child heroes of the film were not only impersonators of the vision, they built this vision. They created the script, dialogues, and worked with the crew on the set. The basis was, of course, the script written by the director together with Łukasz Czapski, but there was also an element of surprise on the set, introducing new ideas and accepting them.
In the director's explanation, Piotr Stasik writes that he wanted to blur the boundaries between the imaginary and the real, so that the film would resemble real childhood, when these boundaries are blurred.
The method did not work as well as the creators expected. The children, yes, are mostly natural, and the dialogues are sometimes original, but I didn't notice any fundamental difference between “A Movie for Aliens” and most high-end family films. Jeremi, Kacper, or the queen of the children's gang who feeds her pupils with earthworm dessert, do not stand out in any way. In the background we have a great, fantastic space plan, which, considering the modest budget, is equally unspectacular.
Therefore, it is a film in which the message is more important than the staging and special effects. Overstimulation as one of the main civilization diseases. It especially affects young people. Trapped in their rooms, in their homes, on their phones, imprisoned also at their own will. Kids, our future. We know little about them and have little access to them.
But kids are still basically the same. They want interest, tenderness, understanding, love. Taking care of.
In “A Movie for Aliens” the conclusion seems clear. Only a return to nature, to reality in which dialogue, meeting, exchange of arguments, parents' love, a trip to the forest, seeing animals (live, not virtual) are important can save us. There is no other way.
6/10
“A Movie for Aliens”, dir. Piotr Stasik, Poland 2024, distributor: Dystrybucja Kinowa TVP, cinema premiere: April 5, 2024.