What Sun Has Seen

In one of the most remarkable Polish films of the year, director Michal Rosa returns to his previous interest in social drama and focuses the storyline on three people and their lives in a town in the Silesian region. The film follows the stories of the three protagonists: Jozef, Marta and Sebastian. The linking element is their urgent need for an impossible sum of money, each for a different reason.
Jozef, somewhere in his fifties, has to find the money so he can pay for his wife’s new teeth. Marta dreams of leaving her country and finding a new life abroad and Sebastian is a young survivor who has adapted to the harsh life of the free-market economy.The three stories intertwine as the protagonists reveal their dreams and everyday struggles.
The script is based on newspaper notes, overheard stories and dialogues, as well as police reports, which brings it close to real life. We can see in this film a follow-up to the Polish kino socjalnego niepokoju (moral-anxiety films), a movement in the seventies that was very interested in the impact of social and economic changes in the country. However, the film keeps its optimism and faith in people. (LC)