Squint Your Eyes

This original comedy represents a new trend in authors’ cinema in Poland. As one of the few financially and substantively independent productions, the film is far removed from fashionable tendencies in Polish film. The director plays with the viewers’ expectations and creates a world of his own that balances somewhere between reality and fantasy, between real life and a fairytale. In his directing début, Jakimowski combines good camera work, subtle humour and quaint rural surroundings cleverly into an elegant and funny film, but he also manages en passant to pose several serious questions about the values that parents surreptitiously communicate to their children. Mala, a plucky 10-year-old girl, runs away from home because her parents -who are only interested in their careers -don’t have nearly enough time for her. She is looked after by Jasiek (Zbigniew Zamachowski, also to be seen in Lichter), a former teacher who lives on a derelict farm. The parents cannot persuade their daughter to return home. Jasiek decides to help her in his own gentle way. He reaches agreement with the girl and tries to manoeuvre her so that she eventually decides to go home on her own. But before that happens, the respectable parents don’t sit back and do nothing. Several unusual figures turn up at the farm, which provides hilarious scenes with dancing friends, a burning dress and an eagle.