Down in the valleys, amputated from the rest of society, you tend to find some pretty odd folk with some pretty backward views. Of course, this isn’t true for all small villages surrounded by miles of foothills but undoubtedly, the rest of society rushes past them. Common sense in these parts is in such short supply that the few who possess some are written off as hysterical and over-sensitive. These atavistic ways just can’t handle a reality check. So, what on Earth do you do when the whole town just takes you for an unhinged old bat and ignores your cries? You load up on revenge and go after em’.
A few months ago, my girlfriend gave me a sublimely dark and shiveringly cold novel, Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead by Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk. A strange blend of existentialism both rural and cosmic, a brew best served icy cold, it’s one of the most engaging things I’ve read. Long since I read it, she’s been wanting to show me the film interpretation of it, Pokot (2017). Rather faithfully following the plot of the book, Duszejko living in a rundown village near the Czech border, loses two of her beloved dogs. On the lookout for them, as a fervent animal lover, she must deal with the hunters in the community ruthlessly poaching the wildlife and wreaking havoc in their natural habitat. After complaining to the police countless times about the hunter’s activities and being constantly written off as crazy, she’s convinced that these savages have a hand in her dogs’ disappearance. What the film is missing is the heavy dose of existentialism from the novel, all of Duszejko’s rambles about the futility of the universe, the delicacy of death, the myopia of humanity and the depravity that’s everywhere, through the movement and songs of the spheres she gives scathing rebukes towards society. But of course, all of those are internal monologues in the book. What the film ends up with is just the pure crime mystery from the book which still works and is an enjoyable watch, but for me it loses that gripping edge that had me glued to the pages of the book. That doesn’t mean that the mystery of the film isn’t engaging. The strange clues around the enigmatic deaths of the hunters kept me just as investigative as I am through the best of crime mystery films, even though I knew the ending.
Regardless of what I said about the manner of dim-witted anachronistic people you may find up in the valleys, I certainly can’t knock the scenery in which they live. The camera revels in dreamy landscape shots of the valley throughout all the seasons, from the crystallising cold to the warm hug of the spring sunlight. Staring out at these magnificent views, the camera catches supreme indelible detail, wisps rising up from the ground, leaves rustling in euphoria. The landscape comes truly alive as a living host to the animals. Extreme close-up shots of animals; roe deer, boars and foxes juxtaposed to the macro shots of their dead eyes once the hunters are through with them fuelled a crazy rage in my body as it did with Duszejko, and to have the village folk treat it like nothing is ever more exasperating. More extreme close-ups of the people she pleads to who completely ignore and ridicule her situate us directly against these fools. Focusing on their lips as they speak, we see their lips move but imagine bullshit coming out instead of words.
The stupidity of the village folk is acted in such a passive and absurd way, they’re so utterly confident in their dogmas that they’re blinded to the truth. This malignancy is present within the way the actors have played their parts and it’s just as enjoyable to watch as Duszejko’s vehement paroxysms towards the indulgent community.
There are some important elements of the book that made it into the film which I thought didn’t quite fit without the existentialism which champions the book, such as Dyzio’s (Dizzy in the book) hobby as translator of Blake. I felt it didn’t really lead anywhere in the film. Despite all of these nit-picky comments, I was held by the film and rather enjoy what I saw. Watch it, if only just for the wonderful landscape shots and erratic personification of emotional turmoil in the camera.
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