Happy Man

Happy Man is the first major feature by Malgorzata Szumowska. The director (27) studied at filmschool in Lódz, where her film Silence was on the list of the fourteen best films ever made there. She was taught by the legendary Wojciech Has, who died last year and whose influence is clearly visible in her films. With her preference for intense colours and traditional framing, Szumowska is returning to the classic Polish cinema of the seventies. Originally a documentary-maker, Ms Szumowska does not make any concessions to the mid-Atlantic taste of the mass audience in her film. She uses strikingly long shots, in which little is said, in order to give the viewer space to reflect. A man of thirty lives in a derelict area of a large city. Despite his university degree, he doesn’t have any work. From time to time he earns a little by writing for a gossip magazine. He lives with his mother in a small apartment. His mother is worried. She wants her son to lead a normal life: to get out, meet someone and get married. The situation gets even more hopeless when the mother falls severely ill. The son can hardly cope with the situation. Then another woman appears in his life.Happy Man is a film about ordinary people who are wrestling to survive and have trouble orienting themselves in a rapidly changing society. It is also a film about the hard side of love, the side that demands sacrifices and courage.