THE PEASANTS is one of the most visually astonishing movies I have seen in recent memory. Utilizing hundreds of painters and animators, each frame of this movie is an oil painting over the filmed scene. I cannot oversell how truly remarkable the finished product is and I was in complete awe as the story progressed.
Real life husband and wife, DK & Hugh Welchman directed and co-wrote this movie based on the Nobel Prize-winning set of books by the same name. Set in a tiny village in Poland in the 19th century, it centers around Jagna (Kamila Urzedowska), the stunningly beautiful young girl who has men wrapped around her finger. She is basically sold to the recently widowed rich landowner Boryna (Miroslaw Baka) by her mother for acres of land that Boryna still refuses to give to his children. His volatile oldest son, Antek (Robert Gulaczyk), is angry and combative. As much as he hates that his father has remarried, it doesn’t stop him from having a torrid affair with Jagna.
Being of Polish descent, THE PEASANTS resonated with me for a variety of reasons. The wild abandonment the villagers exhibit when singing and dancing erupts on the screen as it did at Polish events (zabawas) I attended throughout my youth and adulthood. Watching, and most importantly, hearing the elderly ladies in the village viciously and profoundly gossiping (especially about Jagna and her alleged past, present and potentially future sexual trysts) just reminded me of listening to my mother and her friends doing the same. We call that ‘plotki’. Everything in THE PEASANTS is authentic to my upbringing.
This Movie is of epic, emotional proportions and I will be totally shocked if it is not nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.
THE PEASANTS screens at TIFF ’23:
Saturday, September 16, 5:30PM, Scotiabank
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