With Tricks, Andrzej Jakimowski’s second film after Squint Your Eyes, the 45-year-old director has pulled off the most flawless film of the last few years.

So much sunshine. Literally bathed in sunshine – that’s the impression this film gives. It really makes you feel good.

But – as Andrzej Jakimowski admitted in an interview – there wasn’t that much sunshine during the six summer weeks it took to shoot Tricks. On the contrary, it rained a lot, really poured. Bad luck – you might say. But no matter, when the director knows how to turn bad luck into good. And uses the sunny hours on the set so perfectly that the first take is often the best one.

The film was shot on the summer of 2006, in the lower Silesian town of Wałbrzych, so the closing credit shows the year 2007. For a film that has only just been released that’s a long time. That’s also bad luck.

But if a film like this is capable of enchanting audiences at various festivals, maybe it’s not such a bad idea to show it to normal cinema-goers.

A German distributor thought so – and risked screening this lucky charm in cinemas.

Stefek (Damian Ul) and his sister (Ewa Walendziak) are also unlucky. Their father ran off with another woman so long ago his seven-year-old son only knows him from a scribbled-over photograph. His eighteen-year-old sister, who works in the kitchen of a summer bar, has almost totally wiped her father from her memory. And their mother? She works long hours in a greengrocer’s in a dirty little town, and has become quite placid in the process.

So life is unlucky – in essence. In other words, it’s there to be changed into good fortune. If the commuter who always changes trains at the station where Stefek likes to hang around looks bloody similar to the man in the crumpled photograph, then it can’t hurt to try and get the family back together. All it needs is a few tricks to outwit a few people and if all goes well – fate itself.

To give away what happens next, which soon culminates on a very tempestuous, sunny day, would be to destroy the magic which subtly pervades Tricks.

For the benefit of the audience’s worldly wisdom I’ll only add that it’s definitely worth the seven-year-old’s while to learn how to lure pigeons out of their loft and encourage them to fly in a circle, even if it means a lot of tiresome practice. Secondly, crossing your fingers always helps, even if it not everything turns out quite right. Thirdly, those who are good at distraction bring blessings. And finally, it doesn’t always have to be a Ford Mustang. A Dodge is good enough. Or maybe an Oldsmobile?

Tricks is Andrzej Jakimowski’s second film, after Squint Your Eyes (2002). Such a flawless film as this 45-year-old director has succeeded making in Tricks can only be found every couple of years in the theatres.

Jakimowski’s stars are amateurs, but with such phenomenally natural acting style that they would outshine some professionals. His portrayal of a run-down small town could be interpreted as a nostalgic stereotype, but there are also unobtrusive images of mobile phones and modern office buildings.

Add to this the immensely agile - but never jumpy – camerawork of Adam Bajerski; the sensitive, ambient sounds of Tomasz Gassowski’s guitar and accordion in just the right proportions; and Cezary Grzesiuk’s editing, which oscillates between the aesthetics of the pop video and longer takes. All of these factors contribute to the film in its entirety but are – as individual elements – ever crystal-clear and present. The idyll that Jakimowski describes in the script seems to be, on close examination, hyper realistic. So it is one of the handful of magical, exquisite, magical tricks of this film which turn bad luck into good luck and melancholy into pure joy. Whoever believes in it will be happy. And those who don’t will be too.

JAN SCHULZ-OJALA, DER TAGESSPIEGEL
BERLIN

online :
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/kino/Kleine-Tricks-Andrzej-Jakimowskis;art137,2853362