Galerianki or how Polish feature films have an overfondness for depressive endings

{FILM DIARY}

Galerianki (Poland, 2009)

Seen: Wednesday, 28th October 2009 (cinema)
Runtime: 82′
Director: Katarzyna Roslaniec
Cast: Anna Karczmarczyk, Dagmara Krasowska, Dominika Gwit, Franciszek Przybylski
Production House: Monolith Films
Plot: The story of a couple of teenage girls, who have sex in exchange for money and expensive items.

Trailer

Impressions In Short
Some good performances and unusually developed characters considering this is a Polish film (yep, I’m biased against Polish feature films ;-P). But the plot was lacking and a bit far-fetched in places.

More About the Film
The film made me a bit nostalgic - I kept thinking about the teenage girls I used to converse with, who I’ve now lost contact with. It made me think a lot about how little interaction there is between generations. We, as a society, don’t take teenagers seriously enough to actually consider them as interesting people to talk to. In fact, the only reason I ever got to talk to teenagers at length was that I used to do some English language tutoring. If I were to meet up with a girl of 14 years old (being 26 years old myself), many people would think that odd and some would even wonder if there was something wrong with me. Why is this so? And how can we stop events like those depicted in the film from happening when we isolate teenagers from ourselves so much?
But anyway… The characters were pretty developed and the performances, particularly from the young actors, were very good. But having said that - I wish the plot had been better. A lot of it was just too far-fetched. The ending, in particular, comes to mind. Without spoiling too much, it was a very depressive and sad ending - quite typical of Polish cinema today. And while depressive and sad endings can be quite effective, I’d much prefer a less depressive one that made sense :] This one went ridiculously far. I’m not going to spoil any of the major points, but a more minor point that I rolled my eyes at was the test cheating thing. Anyone who’s gone through the Polish school system has a pretty good idea of how cheating works and what the various techniques for it are. When you try to pull the “test paper exchange” number you don’t fill in somebody else’s paper until you’ve done your own - especially not when it’s a paper that decides which secondary school you’ll be able to apply to!

Recommended?
If you’re into Polish films or particularly like watching good performances from very young actors then this might be worth your time. Otherwise probably not.

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