Zycie rodzinne

Summary A young engineer is called back home, which he had left years before. The house is a crumbling, old mansion in which his father still works, illegally distilling vodka, much of which he drinks himself. He is alcoholic and unhappy. His sister is cynical and disturbed, had attempted suicide. His aunt is tired and sour. Their purpose to bring him there is to play on his sympathies and eventually make stay, to make him work and take care of them. He refuses and returns back to the city. View more details

Zycie rodzinne

Directed : Krzysztof Zanussi

Written : Krzysztof Zanussi

Stars : Jan Nowicki Jan Kreczmar Maja Komorowska Halina Mikolajska

6.8

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Sep 23, 1971

Countries of origin : Poland

Language : Polish

Filming locations : Poland

Production companies : Film Polski Zespol Filmowy "Tor"

Summary A young engineer is called back home, which he had left years before. The house is a crumbling, old mansion in which his father still works, illegally distilling vodka, much of which he drinks himself. He is alcoholic and unhappy. His sister is cynical and disturbed, had attempted suicide. His aunt is tired and sour. Their purpose to bring him there is to play on his sympathies and eventually make stay, to make him work and take care of them. He refuses and returns back to the city. View more details

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Sep 23, 1971

Countries of origin : Poland

Language : Polish

Filming locations : Poland

Production companies : Film Polski Zespol Filmowy "Tor"

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So Close to Home

So Close to Home

Maggie, a professional women in her 30s, is in the sleeping compartment of an overnight train to Sydney. Maggie is a workaholic who drowns her loneliness in a busy world. Unable to relax, she pulls out her laptop. But on this night, Maggie's lifestyle of extreme order and isolation is disrupted when a 14-year-old Albanian girl silently demands her seat and Maggie is forced to travel backwards. The next morning as Maggie anxiously prepares to meet her estranged mother, Ramona, she is disturbed to realize that the girl, Azra, is following her. To Ramona's incredulity, Maggie invites the stranger home and there Azra begins to reveal a deep secret. Ramona's world of quiet suburbia, where novelty letterboxes front the neat yards, is an unlikely scene for a clash of language, culture and family turmoil. But as Azra reveals she is a refugee from Kosovo, the fragile walls of suburban familiarity begin to crack. Her family shattered by war, all Azra has to hold on to is a hand-made postcard of the Opera House, which her mother sent from a detention center in Australia. Azra's past is glimpsed in a nightmarish memory, which is echoed by the childhood experience that Ramona later relays to her own daughter. These fragments within the story add a personally poetic layer to the underlying politics of exile and belonging. Both emotionally troubled, Maggie and Ramona struggle to deal with the stranger. Ramona is highly critical of Maggie, who in turn resents her mother's overbearing ways. Their relationship is turned on its head, when Azra'search leads to a surprising and ultimately moving discovery. In the current climate, where the issue of asylum seekers has polarized opinion, So Close To Home is a remarkable depiction of the ironies and challenges involved in the idea of strangers. What begins as a story of boundaries is soon transformed into an exploration of the bonds of family and in particular, motherhood.

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