Borys Lankosz

I like to think that The Reverse is a story about spiritual victory. Here we have old Sabina waiting at the airport for her son. He lives in New York and comes to visit her, as it turns out, on All Souls’ Day. Why did he choose such an occasion to come to his mother? Why not Christmas or New Year’s Day?

Marek is searching for information about his father, as he believes, a hero of underground resistance who was killed by Stalinist torturers. He never got to meet him. His mother tells him that he has his father’s smile but in no way does she disturb the indomitable image of the father. After a few scenes which sketch Marek’s character, we can see that he is a good, delicate person trying to get to know himself. Sabina brought up her son with love and innate class, who although is dead ringer of his father, is a completely different person. He is her victory and expiation for her mistakes. Marek will never know what happened years ago.

Our female characters created an oasis or rather a safe haven of the old world. There is a distinct border dividing “regular people” and “the new ones”, barbarians who destroyed everything that is of utmost importance. Each trip outdoors is connected with fear and if it was not for the main character’s spinsterhood, there would be no need for maintaining contacts with unaccepted reality. However, the desire for fulfillment as a woman drives Sabinia (her mother and grandma as well) to find the proper man. The one who originates from her world destroyed in the Warsaw uprising, the poet Wodzicki, is burdened with such trauma that he gives the impression of being a living corpse. He himself says that he lost everything but his life. Sabina does not share this view, she wants to live regardless of all, she finds motivation in creating a family, she wants to start a new life. The absence of a man originating from her world leads both to comic situations and real tragedies which arise on contact with the new, dangerous, unknown and burdened with demonic connotations environment. When Sabina confronts reality, when her defiance communicated through the swallowing of a gold coin becomes exposed, one immediately reverts to the scene in which she brags to her brother about finding a stash for the coin, of the existence of which even demonic forces have no knowledge…

Of utmost importance are peace and family security. This servility is for her: her mother giving up gold, frustrated Arek’s social realistic paintings, all thanks to which the family can survive. When all of the sudden an outsider enters their world, the women find themselves under tremendous pressure. How they deal with it is the proper subject of the movie.

It is difficult to classify The Reverse in a particular genre. This is a conscious choice and the movie delivers the patchwork nature of the script. So at the beginning we find ourselves in the field of a Stalinist period drama movie, only to next go through a bourgeois comedy and finally land in a noir film which in the third act switches to a comedy noir. This diversity is the project’s strength. Contemporary framework and the story’s finale integrate the changing genres, creating a coherent whole. The Reverse is a mind provoking story which has a chance (if only for a while) to smooth out the inclination for a “monumental” interpretation of history, so apparent in our culture. This makes it possible to see it though the eyes of the common woman (which is not with out consequence, since still the number of movies made about women is small). The Reverse also provides something what refined audiences love the most: a true movie feast.