Time to Die

Black and white, 35 mm
Poland, 2007, 104 min
Section: East of the West - Films in Competition

Synopsis

An elderly woman enters the surgery and when the doctor, without looking up from her papers, orders her to take off her clothes, she replies: “F… you!” She then returns to her run-down wooden villa where the last of her tenants – forced upon her by the authorities – is moving out. Aniela is now able to savour her newly acquired privacy, which she shares with her faithful companion and guardian – her dog. She dreams of renovating the large villa and hopes that her son will move in with his family to live with her. He, however, has other plans for the family estate. The beautiful summer days pass by, the old lady conducts endless monologues and begins to feel increasing loathing towards her son and his silly, obese daughter. She senses that the world is losing its values, and she herself is losing the will to live. Thus she decides upon a possibly misguided course of action – yet, in doing so, she guarantees that her house will live on. This minimalist black-and-white film offers a poetic testimony in which the ascetic, detached photography of Arthur Reinhart is directed at the wistful solitude of the main character, superbly portrayed by the legendary Polish actress, 93-year-old Danuta Szaflarska.

About the director

Dorota Kędzierzawska (b. 1957, Łódź, Poland) won important awards for her short films while she was still studying film and drama in Moscow and Łódź: Agnieszka (1980), The Egg (Jajko, 1982), Beginning (Początek, 1983) and Gucia (1985). Her debut End of the World (Koniec świata, 1988) brought her a Golden Ducat in Mannheim, her film Devils, Devils (Diabły, diabły, 1991) was hailed in Cannes, she received a series of domestic and international awards at various festivals for her film Crows (Wrony, 1994), and also for her subsequent films Nothing (Nic, 1998), and I Am (Jestem, 2005). The last two films mentioned were also screened in Karlovy Vary.