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NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN
Director: Malgorzata Szumowska Cast: Alec Utgoff, Maja Ostaszewska, Agata Kulesza, Weronika Rosati, Lukasz Simlat, Katarzyna Figura, Andrzej Chyra, Krysztof Czeczot MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:53 Release Date: 7/30/21 (limited; virtual) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 29, 2021 The young man exits from a dark forest at the beginning of Never Gonna Snow Again. We know from where he comes: Ukraine and specifically Pripyat, the city closest to the site of the infamous Chernobyl disaster. We know that he is a masseur and that he speaks multiple languages—"every language," by his account, which he more or less proves as the story progresses. A strange fact about Zhenia (Alec Utgoff) emerges, too, as he applies for a work visa in Poland. He was born exactly seven years to the date before the nuclear accident. The man is a mystery, and so, too, is co-writer/director's Malgorzata Szumowska's film, which looks at the lives of these rich and often self-absorbed neighbors, not with judgment, but with a strangely dispassionate sympathy. That outlook is the best way to describe Zhenia, a man of mystery, yes, but also serenity and perhaps magic. A quick but targeted massage from this man can lull its recipient into a deep, relaxed sleep. In that slumber, a person is transported into that dark forest from which Zhenia emerged and in which the sleeper encounters his or her deepest fears or hopes. This more or less describes the story, written by the director and Michael Englert (who also serves as the film's co-director and cinematographer, giving the whole of it a wintry veneer). Zhenia spends his days making scheduled stops at assorted houses. He catches glimpses of their lives. Maria (Maja Ostaszewka) is overwhelmed with her family and drinks a lot of wine to cope. Ewa (Agata Kulesza) is a widow who seems equally kind and stuck. Wika (Wernoika Roasti) cares for her husband (Lukasz Simlat), who has cancer and believes massages might help. There are more locals, each with some overt or hidden or trivial problem, but Zhenia treats them all with quiet consideration and a kind visage. Is it enough? Is anything enough in world filled with individual and global tragedy, such as the disaster through which Zhenia lived and the title's warning of impending, climate-based doom? We don't know by the end of this story, which sees some of the neighbors improve and others retain the apparent fate they had when Zhenia arrived. Knowing isn't the point of Never Gonna Snow, which creates a curiously mystical and undeniably mournful atmosphere, occasionally providing the best thing anyone can receive: a little hope. Copyright © 2021 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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