Polish Film Festival 2009 - Wojna polsko-ruska (Snow White and Russian Red)

If How Much Does the Trojan Horse Weigh? was too saccharine for my taste, then Wojna polsko-ruska (Snow White and Russian Red) certainly satiated my hunger for some challenging cinema. The tale started life as a novel in 2002 by the then teenaged Dorota Masłowska but was recently turned into a film which was the second (and last) I saw at last weekend's Polish Film Festival here in Madison.

I knew it was going to be a difficult movie from the get-go as the bald, muscle-bound Silny (referred to as "Yobbo" for reasons unknown) sits in a bar and is informed by the bartender that not only is there a war on between the Russkies and the Poles, but also that his girlfriend, Magda, has dumped him. Some of the bartender's lines are delivered by a voice off-screen who we later learn is a teenage girl, presumably the film's version of Masłowska. Infuriated, Silny descends into roid rage and grabs the bartender who is then hurled against a wall Matrix style. I have to admit that I was not expecting wire work.

The story barrels ahead stream of consciousness, dark humor, and all. Silny brings home a goth chick, Andzela, who, he discovers is a virgin. At one point they snort some cocaine and later the next morning a manic acquaintance of Silny's bursts in demanding to know where the drugs are. Her mission of searching soon gets the destroy mandate as well and she proceeds to demolish the kitchen before snorting a rather large line of purple powder which I think was Kool-Aid.

It doesn't take too long to figure out that Silny & Company are the product of the teenage girl's imagination but her role in a larger thematic sense isn't very clear. We get brief scenes of her at home with an occasional POV shot, such as when she is vacuuming the house. But these shots are tinted red and have a slightly murky, out of focus quality to them as if the thinnest layer of Vaseline were smeared on the lens.

Walking out of the theatre I felt both confused and exhilarated. I couldn't help but think that perhaps something got lost in translation or that even just a smidgeon of understanding about modern urban life in Poland might have led to revelation. As it stands, the film deserves a second viewing because there's much to be pieced together. I presume the Russian gangster represents Poland under communism but exactly how it fits into the film's urban malaise (and also perhaps the sub-culture the book chronicled) is beyond me at this point. Plus there's the whole idea of authorship. The teenage girl is the "author" of Silny and the people in his life so am I supposed to infer something about the author, i.e. – director, of the film?

I'm not sure if the film is lacking in its development of themes, I need to pay strict attention at a second viewing, or if what I listed above are just red herrings.