Monday, February 11, 2013

The Polish Bride

I watched The Polish Bride based on a Netflix suggestion and I found it oddly compelling. It's a Dutch film (English subtitles) and very different from most other films I've seen. There's very little dialogue, a surprise for a character-focused drama, and the soundtrack is understated. The lack of dialogue is certainly a statement by the director, but it's also a natural outcome of the basic plot: the two main characters do not speak the same language until the woman learns Dutch. With so little dialogue, we viewers are left to figure out what is happening, to interpret the clues, and in some cases, to decide for ourselves what happened and why.

At the pivotal point in the action, the couple did not react the way I expected, enough to make me wonder if the film had a fatal flaw. Maybe so, but people often react in surprising ways in real life.

There is an Australian version named Unfinished Sky featuring the same lead actress from The Polish Bride. Unfinished Sky won multiple 2008 Australian Film Institute awards. I haven't seen it yet.

If you are looking for a film that is out of the ordinary, give this one a try.

2 comments:

Isaiah said...

Dear John,

I have found your genealogy site to be useful and me and my wife both have relatives on there.
William Stewart son of Theda Colleen Jesse American Bear and Sefroy Seth Stewart, is my father. In your roll you have him listed as a female? Also there are many more relatives of mine and my wife's that I would love to share. email me at tasunkeluta@gmail.com

John said...

Isaiah,

I am not associated with the web site you mentioned. The site was probably built with my web site generation software, but the compiler / publisher is the person who used the software, not me.

John