Spoor (film)

Spoor (Polish: Pokot) is a 2017 Polish crime film directed by Agnieszka Holland, adapted from the novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk.[4][5] It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.[6][4] At Berlin, the film won the Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear).[7] It was selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[8]

Spoor
Film poster
Directed byAgnieszka Holland
Produced byJanusz Wachala
Krzysztof Zanussi
Written byOlga Tokarczuk
Agnieszka Holland
Based onDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
StarringJakub Gierszał
Music byAntoni Lazarkiewicz
CinematographyJolanta Dylewska
Rafal Paradowski
Edited byPavel Hrdlicka
Release date
  • 12 February 2017 (2017-02-12) (Berlin)
  • 24 February 2017 (2017-02-24) (Poland)
Running time
128 minutes
CountryPoland
Czech Republic
Germany[1]
LanguagePolish
Box office$1 million[2][3]

Plot

The film is set in a remote mountainous region of the Kłodzko Valley in south-western Poland, where an elderly woman, Janina Duszejko, turns witness to a violent and mysterious death of several hunters. She is convinced she knows who the murderer is, but nobody believes her story.[4]

The Polish-language title, Pokot, is a hunting term that refers to the count of wild animals killed. The English title Spoor refers to the traces and tracks left behind by the hunted game.

Discussion with Holland at the premiere of Spoor (Pokot) in Nowa Ruda, south-western Poland

Cast

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 74% based on 23 reviews, and an average rating of 6.5/10.[9] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[10]

In a feature in Film Comment, Amy Taubin praised the film's political critique and its beauty, stating, “Sprawling, wildly beautiful, emotionally enveloping, Spoor earns its vision of utopia. It would not be the most resonant and inspiring political film of the century if it did not give us hope.”[11]

In a positive review for the Krakow Post Giuseppe Sedia wrote, "enriched with some majestic close-ups of wild animals caught in their natural habitat and framed à la Sergei Parajanov, Holland’s film is a sturdy environmental thriller film drenched in a very Czech black humor that could charm trappers and mushroom hunters alike".[12]

In February 2017, director Holland said in an interview for The Guardian: "One journalist for the Polish news agency wrote that we had made a deeply anti-Christian film that promoted eco-terrorism. We read that with some satisfaction and we are thinking of putting it on the promotional posters, because it will encourage people who might otherwise not have bothered to come and see it."[13]

See also

References
  1. kinobox.cz, team at. "Česko-polský snímek Přes kosti mrtvých míří na Berlinale do hlavní soutěže". Kinobox.cz. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  2. "Pokot (Spoor)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
  3. "Pokot". The Numbers. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
  4. Nick Holdsworth. "Berlin: Agnieszka Holland Talks True Crime Film 'Spoor' and Trying TV's Golden Age (Q&A)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  5. "Spoor (Pokot)". Cineuropa. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  6. "Aki Kaurismäki, Oren Moverman, Agnieszka Holland, Andres Veiel, and Sally Potter – First Films for the Competition of the Berlinale 2017". Berlinale. 15 December 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  7. "Prizes of the International Jury". Berlinale. 18 February 2017. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
  8. Holdsworth, Nick (9 September 2017). "Oscars: Poland Selects 'Spoor' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
  9. "Spoor (Pokot) (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  10. "Spoor Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  11. Taubin, Amy. "Mother Earth". Film Comment. Film Society of Lincoln Center. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  12. Sedia, Giuseppe (22 March 2017). "Spoor (2017)". Krakow Post. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  13. "Agnieszka Holland: Pokot reflects divided nature of Polish society". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
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