Sweet Rush (Andrzej Wajda, 2009): Poland

Reviewed by Linda Ersbacken. Viewed at the AFI Film Festival, Hollywood.

I saw this film in the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, for the AFI Film Festival and I had no expectations going in to see this film, as I hadn’t even read anything about it. What I got to see was confusing yet interesting.

Sweet Rush is a film about a woman named Krystyna (Krystyna Janda, playing herself), who is an actress who just lost her husband. The film begins with a Krystyna waking up from a nightmare, then begins her monologe in a dark room. She’s talking about her husband. What happens next, is in my opinion pretty unclear but it switches to another story about a woman, named Marta (Janda) who lives with her doctor husband, who won’t tell her she only has the summer to live. The woman is sad from losing her two sons years ago, and likes to go down to the beach where the young adults dance and hang out. She is especially fascinated by one young man, Bogus (Pawel Szadja.) The two of them somehow become friends, and have a very strange relationship. A couple scenes into the film, we get to see that this second story is a film within a film, and it becomes more clear towards the end of the film. The actress who’s talking in the room about her late husband is the actress playing the character Marta.

Janda’s monologue is about a death, and the film within the film is sort of also about death, but in my opinion the two aren’t connected enough, it leads to confusion instead of symbolizing or portraying the story. It makes sense that two stories aren’t exactly the same but the film within the film does not make sense to me. Janda portrays her characters well, as well as Szadja, who was there after the film, for the Q&A, and the film, like I said is worth continuing watching, once you have begun to understand it a little better.

The director, Andrzej Wajda, was there to introduce the film and he thanked Janda for telling the story about her husband and letting them make a film about it. The credits also thank her. It is possible that Janda tells the story about her husband’s death in the monologue, and it makes it more interesting and heartfelt. Maybe if I saw this film again, I would understand it and appreciate it better. It just wasn’t clear to me why the film within the film was portrayed the way it was. If it actually was based on Janda’s true experience I wish she could have been there to explain it, or actually, I wish they would have made it clear in the film.

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Published:
11.04.09 / 11am
Category:
AFI Filmfest 2009, Films