- “Crazy people” it's a classic road movie with a crime plot in the background. Eryk and Karolka are a couple of dreamers. After leaving prison, they decide to start a new life in the bosom of nature. However, it is difficult for them to find each other. Eryk also wants happiness for his little daughter Dżesika. He kidnaps her from her grandfather and together with Karolka they set off on an adventurous journey through Poland. Matters become more complicated when Karolka falls seriously ill. The only salvation for her will be expensive treatment, for which they obviously have no money. Eryk and little Dżesika take matters into their own hands.
- The film was directed by Jan Jakub Kolski and the main roles were played by: Eryk Lubos, Alicja Stasiewicz and Zuzanna Drobniak.
- The film will debut in cinemas on April 12. Watch the movie trailer!
Jan Jakub Kolski he threatened in interviews that “Mad Men” will be the last film, which he undertook to produce, this does not mean, I hope, that he will give up directing. Anyway, let's remember that the political situation has changed significantly, and for the creator “Jańcia Wodnika” this should mean changes for the better.
“Jańcioland and surroundings”. I mentioned the canonical title, probably the most recognizable in Jan Jakub Kolski's achievements, in order to deflect from this title. Kolski's biographers divide his work into two main trends – the first of them, the primary and most artistically interesting, is “Jańcioland”, taming Marquez with Redli and Myśliwski. Polish Macondo or Popielawy. And miracles, and visions, and harm, and a cow with a tail, and a cow with devil's power. Kolski was like that, and only then, let's remember, did others follow him. It's a long, getting longer list.
In opposition to “Jańcioland”, at some point Kolski appeared to be irritating, negating the honest, brutal, potty-mouthed Lubos, or Majchrzak with a passionate look. Closer to Houellbecqua than to magic.
“Mad Men”, Kolski's latest, and hopefully not last, film, is situated between two main trends. This is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. An advantage because it shows that Kolski is not satisfied with the status quo, he is looking for a new language, enriching the previous one, trying to combine structures. The disadvantage is that at some point it all seems overloaded and poor.
A love story, a fatherhood story, and a crime story. Kolski introduces these structures also to disarm them, detonate them, show that the fairy tale he has been telling since the first film, after all, does not have to have a happy ending, it does not have to be joyful or with a moral.
Jan Jakub's fairy tale is a princess turned upside down, as in Celderon's title in Rymkiewicz's imitation. She got hurt, poor thing, she lost and got her dress muddy, and the crown is wild flowers, and the slippers are worn-out Dr. Martens shoes. Kolski tells us such stories today. It hurts, sometimes it makes me happy, it also makes me laugh.
Kolski's special place has always been special heroes. A child with a tail, a limping mystic, a rake with paresis, Siemian from “Pornography” with some kind of neuralgia. The extraordinary nature of this world resulted from the original vision: visual (Kolski is a cinematographer by first education), musical (Konieczny!), and acting (the “Jańcioland” team – with Franciszek Pieczka, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Grażyna Błęcka-Kolska and Grzegorz Damięcki on head).
This world couldn't last forever, nothing lasts forever. Bitterness and “lunatics” entered it (even the title itself sounds politically illegal today). Kolski matured, became a little disappointed, I have a feeling he became sad. And these are his latest films. Sadder.
Titles such as “To Kill a Beaver”, “Pardon” or “Forest, Four in the Morning”, even the supposedly family-friendly “Republic of Children”, are the works of a man wounded: by life, by the environment, by time, who exorcises sadness through cinema.
“Mad Men” seems to be another installment of this story. Boy and girl. They get out of prison, they get out of prison, but the resocialization was unsuccessful: their idea of life is still simple. Steal, sleep, drink, or drink without sleeping. We have seen dozens of such films. Most of them, unlike Kolski's “Madmen”, were brutal and full of aggression. However, we do not accuse the author of “Jasminum” of this. And rightly so.
Even if Jan Jakub uses generic staffage, he does it not to copy anyone, but to tell his own story. A story of sadness.
Because in a moment the convention changes. “The sun, the sun” appears (this is, of course, a travesty of the title of another film by Jan Jakub – “Heart, heart”). The sun is a girl, the daughter of the hero played by Lubos. The girl was supposedly stolen, but not entirely. The chase is on, but not really. Criminals with convictions, but nice and sensitive. There would be an idyll, but there is no idyll. Because of a child, because of an escape, because of an illness, because of money, lack of money. Kolski's sun is always behind a cloud.
Alicja Stasiewicz – another acting discovery by Jan Jakub Kolski and Eryk Lubos, build their roles on the principle of unity of opposites, they are different, that's why they are close. At times, Zuzia Drobniak steals the show as a smart-ass girl who seems more sensible than her guardians. The characters are intriguing, Pińczów and Ponidzie are captivating, but after the viewing you are left unsatisfied.
It would be good to place “The Madmen” in the context of Jan Jakub Kolski's entire filmography, then the value of “The Madmen” paradoxically increases.
Sad Kolski is really trying to smile at us. It shows that love is possible and that caring has its price. That even if the setting can be repulsive, it is worth doing your part, trying to live so as not to waste everything. Crazy people can do it. We all might be crazy.
6/10
“Crazy people”, dir. Jan Jakub Kolski, Poland 2024, distributor: Dystrybucja Kinowa TVP, cinema premiere: April 12, 2024.