The Wedding Day

Renowned Polish director Wojciech Smarzowski's brand new film does not quite resemble anything you've seen before. With one exception: he builds on the story of an upper-class wedding from his own debut film, the comedy Wedding (2004). Much of Wedding's starting point is retained in the new film: the rich businessman is due to marry off his daughter (an old-fashioned wording, but in this case it fits). The wedding is expensive and lavish, it includes bribes and shady business, workers who do not get paid and a facade that eventually cracks. Everything takes place in one day.

Yet, the new Wedding Day is by no means a comedy, although it has funny scenes. It is deeply serious. And it is experienced as angry. Smarzowski brings in the treatment of the Jews during World War II and shows a massacre that took place in the village where the wedding is being held. Eventually, he cuts together the two time zones, and shows how the same attitudes live in our time as well. A hard-hitting film.

This film was chosen by film critic Jan Storø.