Elephant (2023)

"Bartek" (Jan Hrynkiewicz) is a young lad, pretty stretched, living with his slightly over-bearing mother (Ewa Skibinska) on their struggling farm. His life is pretty mundane until the arrival of "Dawid" (Pawel Tomaszewski). He has returned home after the death of his estranged father, and "Bartek" agrees to meet him at the station. That's their first meeting, but gradually we are exposed to their increasing affection for each other. Each seems to offer the other a sense of hope, of the possibility of escape from the drudgery of a rural Polish existence that is rife with religious intolerance and bigotry - examples of which are soon demonstrated clearly as people around their village begin to realise the boys are not just friends. Director Kamil Krawczycki builds a gentle love story here without straying into cheesy sentimentality. The rather potent foil offered by Skibinska works well as a temper to the boy's own, frequently quite messy, story and also illustrates well the values of family loyalty - even if it might not be her own preferred scenario. Though perhaps a little predictable, it's a well constructed drama with three engaging performances that are well supported by Viktoria Filus's "Daria" as we conclude in a way that I could only describe as, rather sadly, all too realistically. It serves to remind those of us living in Western Europe in 2023 that acceptance of same sex relationships is by no means a universal fact across our part of this continent and is worth ninety minutes of your time just to remind us of what not to take for granted.