Jörg Taszman, 23 lipca 2009

Summer in a small Polish town. Little Stefek is sitting at the station with his grown-up sister and thinks he’s going to see his father, who walked out on the family long ago.

But Elka states unequivocally that that man is not their father. Stefek doesn’t give up. He returns to the station every day with new tricks, in order to unmask his father. He throws coins and places lead soldiers on the tracks so that the trains will have to stop and his supposed father will be forced to rescue the man who gathers up the money.

Then there’s the flock of pigeons that Stefek releases one day, but which just circle around above the town. The bright boy and his “father” slowly become friends, and it turns out that the birds once belonged the father when he was younger. For Stefek it’s further proof he has found his father.

Director Andrzej Jakimowski subtly stages a dreamy summer story which is played out here and now and which is essentially concerned with observations of everyday activity. So Elka, who works part-time in two different bars and dreams of a better job is learning Italian.

In the excellent finale, where the supposed father sets off on his return journey to Stefek’s mother, the boy uses all sorts of tricks in order to assist chance. But unlike the great Krzysztof Kieœlowski, for whom chance occurrences often signify something serious or tragic, Andrzej Jakimowski has made an enchanting, optimistic film.

And thus one of the year’s most beautiful little films comes from Poland for once: released in German by a distributor who has already shown how great Eastern European cinema can be – with the Czech comedy Empties.