In Polish filmmaker Grzegorz Dębowski’s What Belongs to Others (Cudze Rzeczy) sourpussed Kasia (Monika Kwiatkowska) and her bullying boyfriend Darek (Robert Mania) haven’t paid their rent in a while, and the landlords have come to collect. He hides like a coward. She’s left to try and plea for more time. She doesn’t do a very good job, which pisses him off.
They, then, go about their normal routine day slipping into apartment buildings, pretending to be cleaners, and breaking into people’s homes to steal what they can. Then, off the supermarket where Kasia smells perfume she likes and Darek decides to steal it for her. Before you can say petty larceny, he’s parceled off to prison, and she’s locked out of her apartment. What’s a gal to do but go back to the apartment building and find an empty home to crash in.
When she awakens she finds a dead man hanging in another room which begins an entirely new adventure for Kasia as she sets out to scam whomever she can in order to capitalize on the situation. Meanwhile, an angry Darek keeps calling her from prison demanding she find money to help secure an attorney for him.
But things slowly change for Kasia, as she probes the dead man’s life further, and meets his family. Something in her shifts and allows her to break free from her past, create a new identity and, maybe, change her future.
Dębowski is a gifted filmmaker who has organically fashioned a truly tantalizing, almost magical story about a detached and somewhat despicable character who is able to find a kind of redemption.
Kwiatkowska is a marvel as her face slowly metamorphoses from the perpetual look of disdain and doom to an actual half smile. Her Kasia is able to break free from her own shackles. And the scene where she visits Darek in prison is priceless.
The film also contains a very haunting performance by Ewa Pająk, as an older woman who is losing her memory and, possibly, her sanity, but is also finding her own contentment in her inner world.
A late scene where two characters are locked in a dance and embrace proves transcendent.
What Belongs to Others should definitely be in consideration as Poland’s International Feature Oscar submission. It’s a sublime experience.
The film is part of the Horizons (Orizzonti) section of the Venice Film Festival.
In Polish, with English subtitles.
