Seasons is a story about two people who find it similarly difficult to live with each other and to leave. They struggle with each other on stage, because playing for both her and him is a way of expressing themselves. They are as distant from each other as they are close. The frenzied theatrical schedule for the coming seasons leads them through feelings they couldn’t tell each other about. Will it lead them to catharsis?
Ola (Agnieszka Dulęba-Kasza) and Marcin (Lukasz Simlat) are two actors, working in the same theater. Also working with them is Marcin’s dad Tadeusz (Andrzej Grabowski), who for many years has been announcing that each new season is his last. In the theater we also meet Ola’s lover Ziemowit (Dobromir Dymecki), whose affair the whole theater, including the director (Andrzej Seweryn), knows about – everyone knows, but Marcin. And he finds out about it, at the worst possible moment, because just before he goes on stage.
The acting, the script, the joke, the cinematography – absolutely everything here is more than on point: perfectly balanced, seasoned with as much bitterness as sweetness. The only thing left to say is to say: “what a movie this is!” and the remaining ‘what are/is…!’, because there may not be enough space in a single text to fully praise this film. And so:
What is this acting! Lukasz Simlat and Agnieszka Dulęba-Kasza have created Oscar-worthy performances (not that this is any indicator!). They perfectly embody a married couple of actors who share their lives, care for their daughters and work, but are not necessarily at a similar point of view on their relationship. They have been diverging in words and truth in their daily lives for so long that when the moment of honesty comes they pour a torrent of reproaches and confessions on each other without looking at the fact that they are just playing out a play for children. Both Agnieszka Dulęba-Kasza and Łukasz Simlat find themselves in this not easy role playing two roles at the same time, and they will play as many as three such performances for us! They are believable, they are the ones you want to watch, and I would most like to watch all these performances, fragments of which we see on the screen.
What is this script! Great applause is due to Tomasz Walesiak and Michał Grzybowski, who included as many as four scenarios in one script, because in addition to Seasons they adapted excerpts from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan; or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Magnificently realized with exceptional scenery, each play in turn draws us into its presented world. First we sail on a ship full of pirates, only to dance a moment later as if there is no tomorrow, only to land a moment later in an oneiric world where java mixes with dream. It is simply: AM-AZ-ING
What are these pictures! Insanely difficult to make because they happen in the cramped corridors of a theater in Toronto. The camera follows both what’s happening on stage and what’s in the film script. Insanely difficult so that neither one nor the other loses out, and for this a big round of applause for Edgar de Poray.
I want more films like this, which at times make you laugh and at times bring you to tears. I want films that are so beautifully realized, without sound fakery and so outstandingly acted. I want such theater, I want such roles for actors and actresses, because it doesn’t matter whether the more famous ones or the less famous ones, they all came off here as if they were playing the roles of a lifetime.
The film Seasons (directed by Michał Grzybowski) to be seen in the Polish Feature Film Competition during the 18th Mastercard OFF CAMERA.
Kinga Majchrzak