Plynace wiezowce (2013) Reviews

• Innovative only because of where it's set, but interesting nonetheless

  euroGary2013-11-25

  Kuba (Mateusz Banasiuk) is a promising competitive swimmer who spends his time training, refereeing between his argumentative mother and girlfriend, and getting blowjobs in the changing room toilets (supposedly from other young men, although the sound effects make it seem like he's got a hungry labrador in there with him). Then he meets Michał, and perhaps both young men will come out of the closet. But in Poland, that's not necessarily an easy thing to do... There are too many padding scenes in this - shots of cars driving through multi-storey car-parks or of Polish underpasses add little and could easily have been cut (or perhaps replaced with further shots of the fortunately-endowed Mr Banasiuk in the shower). But it's a pleasing enough film: not a new story by any stretch of the imagination, but seeing a well-worn plot set in a different location always adds an air of originality. And the nudity - both male and female - is nice! Banasiuk does well in the lead role, seeming remote and unemotional until the affair with Michał starts, whereupon he warms noticeably (although one suspects he's never going to be the life and soul of the party). But acting honours go to Marta Nieradkiewicz as the wronged girlfriend held prisoner by the love she realises is hopeless, and to Katarzyna Herman as the clingy yet realistic mother. Heralded as Poland's first-ever 'gay film', this is worth watching not just for its novelty, not just for the nudity (or did I mention that already?), but also because it is an engrossing human interest drama that's a good way to spend 93 minutes.

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• A Missed Opportunity

  moviegeek12015-01-21

  What a completely frustrating experience this film was! The frustration comes mostly from the lead character, Kuba, who is an attractive, athletic young man who can't seem to get out of his own way. Kuba has a sexy girlfriend, Sylwia that he enjoys, although he has secrets that he keeps from her. Their relationship takes a bit of a turn when Kuba meets the beautiful Mikal and they become fast friends. As their friendship deepens into a truly emotional connection, Kuba's sometimes violent self-loathing and shame kicks in and won't let him act on his desires. Obligation and guilt keep him tied to his girlfriend and domineering, no-nonsense mother and he refuses to take the leap that will ultimately make him happy. He and Mikal become so physically close at one point that I found myself yelling at the television screen, "Kiss him, already!" Instead, Kuba spends every waking moment afraid, ashamed and full of self-hatred, even in those illicit moments he sometimes spends in public restrooms. When the truth about Kuba and Mikal becomes too obvious for Sylwia to ignore, gauntlets are thrown down and ultimatums are given. Mikal, whose only crime was falling in love with his best friend is having his own struggles and is inadvertently affected by Kuba's actions. And as one can imagine, this is not a feel-good movie. As the film ended, I as a viewer was unsure of what the filmmaker intended to say with his story. Some of the characters get what they want, some of them don't, but none of them seem satisfied with the way things end up. What was the filmmaker's message? Was it, "life sucks and then you die?" I have never watched a gay-themed film that ended up being so decidedly and anti-gay as this one did. The five stars I give this film are for the compelling performances of the actors. And if you're looking for some skin, there a couple of scenes that won't disappoint. The movie is effectively shot. But where the movie fails is in it's heart-breaking cynicism. Does it want to champion these people, or condemn them? Does it want to hold them up as examples or as cautionary characters? A film that leaves you with more questions than answers isn't always a good thing, but it's exactly what this one does. You are left with questions.............and frustration.

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• out of date cinematic treatments of gay theme

  didier-202014-04-12

  Tomasz Wasilewski has publicly declared this to be Poland's first gay themed film which is not true. In Poland at least the gay film genre is fledgling, but this film follows in the wake of more than half a dozen gay themed Polish films made in recent years. To insist on such a declaration betrays a failure to grasp the tradition of the gay themed film he has honoured himself with the task of contributing to. Wasilewski's film displays good acting with a cast who are sympathetically engaging. Cinematically, the visuality is sophisticated, with obvious preoccupations with the elemental essences of spatiality and landscape. But this photographic style threatens to bow under the weight of it's own vacuity where style rules over substance once one considers the terrible treatment Wasilewski consigns upon his chosen subject matter, the gay themed film. Wasilewski can be seen on Youtube to say that his gay character is something new but what we in fact encounter is a much unwanted throw-back to the days when gays in cinema were always the unfortunate, the unfulfilled, the castigated, the bad, mad or murdered. Eastern Europe is slowly emerging from a traumatised, isolated, abused and culturally starved recent past and at the time of this film's release Poland is dominated by a reactionary conservatism fuelled by a right wing anti-gay middle European Catholicism. But are things really this bad for gay people in Poland's capital ? Are options among the urban set so limited ? In fact there is much evidence that this is not the case. But more to the point, even if it were, then more so than ever, the film maker has in some sense a duty to use their imagination to elevate the gay themed film to a higher and better place. But this is far from what occurs in Floating Skyscrapers. Despite initial indications of a touching and successful gay romance, Wasilewski freefalls somewhat inexplicably into negative clichés which one had been led to believe were consigned to the vaults of cinematic history. Hail the return of the tedium of the ultra magnified maladjusted gay, the threatened morally indignant heterosexuals, the traumatised parents, the proverbial slaps across the face, the long stoney silences, the angst, the intense sense of heavy burden of the oh-no-he's-gay! problematics and finally the inevitable gay bashing. If Wasilewski thinks this is something new then he needs a stiff pointing back to seminal gay discourses of the 1980s which exposed these negatively limiting stereotypes and were well aired in popular gay documentaries and books such as The Celluloid Closet. This is old hat. The extent to which Wasilewski fails to grasp his subject continues. If there is something new about this character it is the possibility that he is in fact not a gay character but a bisexual character. Certainly he lives out all the primary psychological dilemmas that define the trials of true bisexuality. Bisexuality is one of the emergent sexual minorities of the era in terms of recent understanding and long held misconceptions finally being overturned. As a portrayal of the obstacles of bisexual fulfilment the story serves well. But Wasilewski falls into uninformed handling here, fixing the identity upon the axis of gay, while inferring notions about fluid sexualities which are currently thought to be wrong and damaging to understanding both the emotional needs of gay and true bisexuality. Aside from the failure to handle the thematic politics of sexual minorities, somewhat incongruous with the level of prejudice portrayed, the film's characters hang out in art galleries, smoking dope, listen to cool music, socialise in underground urban gatherings, wear trendy clothing, have IKEA filled apartments and own all the latest gadgets which means crucially access to the internet. So how does Wasilewski imagine that the gay subject could receive such a unanimously negative reception among this set of people ? The only concession one could grant Wasilewski is that he is at odds to portray a Poland which may have had a material recovery but devoid of any tangible recent social revolution, it's social mindset remains effectively in the dark ages. Again there is evidence that this is not necessarily the case in Poland's capital. But also, once again if reality in Poland were so, then would it not be in some sense his duty to offer a different vision, a different way of thinking to the Polish ? Unfortunately Wasilewski does not do this and what we have here is an example of social attitudes presented as cultural immaturity largely because the prejudice portrayed is omnipotent. What's more, the degree of prejudice remains both unexamined & unchallenged but instead accepted and perhaps even gratuitously celebrated. In Youtube interviews, Wasilewski fails to grasp the extent of his negative treatment of the gay subject and perhaps any ownership of his own internalised homophobia which his plot-point choices betray. Though publicly celebrated for creating a gay themed film, he has in fact unforgivably created a homophobic film which revels in the manifestation of gay victimhood and lacks the courage to establish a sustainable vision for sexual minorities in Polish cinema. Further more he plays into the hands of Poland's political right by confirming their beliefs that sexual minorities are unstable, disruptive and as the perpetrator of the unacceptable only ever to be perceived as a victim to be mistrusted. The extent of the failure of responsibility in this work runs deep and that is a shame where obvious cinematographic sophistication can be seen and a very good cast was assembled. Wasilewski needs to consider the charges laid here carefully and perhaps not back away from the subject but make another film which corrects his wrongs and enlightens the territory which this work fails to do.

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• 90 minutes of splendor, followed by 5 minutes of complete trash (spoilers, obviously)

  usnavynuke2017-01-21

  I'm giving this a 2, because it was a great movie to start out with! Sure, it was slow, and the director was gratuitous with the nudity and with the side story of the main character's swimming aspirations. However, I feel completely cheated. First off, neither of the gay men get a decent ending. What really grinds my gears, however, is that the one who gives up his gay lifestyle and goes back to his girlfriend gets to live, while the one who proudly tells his parents he won't change ends up dead. By the hands of a homophobe who gets the crap beat out of him earlier- on by his own boyfriend. So sure, the one gets to live, but now he's caused his ex-boyfriend to be heartbroken, by breaking up with him and not telling him why exactly, but he inadvertently causes his death. The only person who gets what they want in this film is the non-flushed- out character of the mother, who tells her son he needs to break up with his boyfriend and go back to the girlfriend. Basically, what I've learned from this film is that I should never visit Poland. I might fall in love with someone, just for him to break up with me, and then I get murdered by people he beat up. I honestly thought this movie was going to be great when I was about halfway through it. However, that ending ruined the entire film for me, and not just because I'm tired of the dead-gay-trope. I'm mad about the way the director went about doing it. It wasn't stylish. There was no mourning the dead gay character. It was tasteless and I'll never watch anything by this director again.

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• A throwback to the 1970's "If you gay, then you'll have a horrible life and die tragically"

  robert-tomas2013-11-15

  I don't know, where to start, that's how misguided this film is. First, we are in Warsaw, a sophisticated European city in the year 2012. And yet, the confused young man has never been on the Internet or to one of many gay bars in Warsaw. Neither one of the protagonists comes from country bumpkin families and yet they are somehow unable to have an adult conversations with,their families. Then , of course the young, able- bodied man cannot go to work to either pay for an abortion or child support for an unwanted child with the by-then ex-girlfriend - instead he throws away a chance for self-realization. Bullshit I say, since I have managed to come out of the closet in then- Communist Poland with social mores dictated by the catholic clergy 28 years ago in that very same Warsaw. Btw. My ex-girlfriend got pregnant too. Sôooooo, in short, what a cowardly throwback.....terribly misguided film that will only scare and confuse some young, questioning men. By the way, killing the only well-adjusted gay man in the film really adds an insult to injury.

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