WEREWOLF / CERT: 15/ DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ADRIAN PANEK / STARRING: KAMIL POLNISLAK, NICOLAS PRZYGODA, SONIA MIETIELICA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Adrian Panek’s unique and interesting World War II drama makes it onto Blu-ray, courtesy of Eureka entertainment, in what is a great transfer on a vanilla disk, with a trailer being the only special feature available. The film itself, which may be too sombre and abstract for some, is a fine piece of filmmaking and a different experience from your standard concentration camp commentaries.
We begin in a polish concentration camp, at the end of the Second World War. We focus on a group of children who are forced to exercise and treated with disdain by the guards, until one is brutally killed by one of the guard dogs. When they are liberated by the Russians, the children, still in their striped clothes, find themselves in an abandoned mansion, trying to survive, but when a pack of starving dogs, fresh from guarding the liberated camp come looking for their next meal, survival becomes even more difficult for the young refugees. Werewolf has two elements to it, a dreamy survival tale and an all-out horror, once the dogs arrive. Both aspects feel unusual and new, there are small time jumps within the story, with characters turning up without explanation and some of the children rarely speak, we just see them playing, fighting, eating and trying to find some humanity after their brutal experiences. This can become quite disorientating, but then the canines arrive, an unusual but great antagonist, the dogs are relentless and a real threat to life, they too are trying to survive and are victims of their owners cruelty. It is fitting that the children discover the kindness in their four legged enemy, to ultimately conquer them.
Some aspects of the film can become too dreamlike, and especially with the foreign language, which includes Polish, German and Russian, it is hard to distinguish individual characters. We have the tough kid, the girl forced to be a tomboy and the slightly disturbed spectacled boy, as the three main protagonists. It would have been nice, to have a bit more insight into their story and how that shaped their personalities. Parts of the story could also be a bit clearer, we never really see how they arrive at the abandoned mansion, or where some of the adults came from.
These small negativities do add to the flow of the movie though, fine detail is not important here, it is as if we are living with this group, experiencing what they experience, the performances are brilliant, as importantly they are presented initially as nasty young people, who must discover how to live together and treat each other with respect. The dogs attacking, is the catalyst for this chance to grow up and discover how to exist in a more serene world. We get a wonderful pastiche of themes here, in a way only film can deliver, from the innocence of childhood, the true aspect of evil and the rawness of nature, all beautifully shot by Panek and his cinematographer Dominik Danilczyk. A liberating experience for cinefiles and casual viewers alike.
