Tricks


Seven-year-old Stefek wanders around a small, sleepy Polish town during the summer holidays. There are no big adventures here, but rather little things he finds enchanting. His cosmos is a world of admiration and discovery.

That means lead soldiers, the childish bliss of eating Mediterranean fruits and searching for his lost father, who Stefek wants to get back with his mother – with the help of little tricks.

In Stefek’s (Damian Ul) childish fantasy there’s nothing, which can’t arouse his fascination. The boy spends long hours at the sleepy railway station doing experiments between, in front of or on the railway tracks; he helps a stall-holder to sell all his apples; or goes on a motorbike ride with his sister Elka’s (Ewelina Walendziak) boyfriend.

There’s nothing that could safely escape his childish curiosity. Everything is put under the microscope and carefully analysed. Even the pigeon loft becomes a place of adventures, as Stefek tries to solve the mystery of these birds, that probably only his grandfather knew. 18-year-old Elka also discovers the “mystery” of this world, studying Italian hard – in spite of working as a washer-up – and hoping to get a better job. Her admirer, Jerzy (Rafał GuŸniczak), spares no effort to flirt with her in his cautious way. He soon captures her heart thanks to his charm, his stubborn motorbike and his high horsepower rental cars.

While Elka spends her time running from the kitchen to interviews or her Italian lessons, and Jerzy breathes new life into old bangers, Stefek is making a long-awaited discovery at the railway station. The rail traveller he’s been observing for some time must be his father. At least Stefek would like him to be. When this man misses his train, the boy seizes his opportunity. Quickly managing to gain the trust of this stranger; nothing can now stand in the way of getting him back with Stefek’s mother...

With Tricks, Director Andrzej Jakimowski has created a superb work of art, whose dreamy adventures at times resemble the French film Amélie.

The protagonists are captured with the eye of the camera lovingly and seemingly by chance. In this way, the camerawork, though not entirely documentary-like, is very realistic. Nonetheless, it’s not a documentary film – but the work of a camera in a realistic feature film.

Jakimowski often suggested to his actors that a particular scene was still not complete because he wanted to capture the directness of a spontaneous moment. And viewers will often have the impression that some scenes were filmed with a hidden camera, accompanying the actors in their fictitious reality.

The decision of the director to work with amateurs results in their authenticity livening up the film, as if the script sprang from real life.

Damian Ul – who passes through an incredible metamorphosis – is superb.

The boy portrays the character as if he really were Stefek: conquering the grown-up world with lead soldiers, watermelons and childish oaths. And Ewelina Walendziak – with her severe manner – is a revelation, while Rafał GuŸniczak as Jerzy can't really be considered an amateur, as he already demonstrated his acting skills in Jakimowski’s 2003 debut Squint your eyes.

In any case, the filmmaking world agrees about Tricks; after awards in Venice, Gdynia and Tokyo, the film was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category.

Tricks is a film with a healthy dose of humour, verve and remarkable ingenuity, which tells a little story fantastically and presents Poland, our neighbours, in a totally new light. It’s a film that calls forth innocent childhood moments.

It’s magic, full of humour – a one-off.

(Silvy Pommerenke)

online version:
http://kino-zeit.de/filme/kleine-tricks