THE PERFECT AFTERNOON

Mikołai and Anna want to marry. Money is scarce, but optimism abounds. Together with his friend Krzysiek, Mikołai is trying his hand as a publisher, but his fi rst book has sold only 500 copies. Another friend, Jacek, wants to make a fi lm about veterans of the anti-Communist opposition in Poland, and asks Mikołai to help. Initially unwilling, he agrees when Jacek offers him a deal: Even if the project doesn’t come to anything, the bridal couple will get a free video of their wedding. Przemysław Wojcieszek draws a vivid picture of contemporary Poland by bringing into collision different generations and their confl icting notions of how to live, their differing perspectives on past and future. The occasional clash is inevitable, as when Mikołai’s friends come to blows – outside a McDonald’s – during an argument about whether people who leave the country to pursue the old Polish dream of a better life abroad are escapist. Those who choose to stay are at any rate obliged to contend with the still powerful forces of tradition. Anna’s father, a country butcher, insists they marry in a church. But since Mikołai’s parents have long been separated, the young couple knows how fragile supposedly eternal bonds can be. His father, a tram conductor in Wroclaw who was a member of Solidarność, views the wedding as the chance to attempt a reconciliation with his ex-wife; to prepare the ground he even visits her in Warsaw, a city he loathes. The tone of the fi lm is fundamentally cheerful, with the very agile camerawork and the use of black-and-white for the video shoots conveying the vibrancy of a new departure – even if life is not always easy.