Malgorzata Szumowska – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

INFINITE STORM – Review by Diane Carson

March 29, 2022March 31, 2022 Diane Carson Billy Howle, Denis O’Hare, Infinite Storm, Malgorzata Szumowska, Naomi Watts, Pam Bales

Having backpacked a fair amount in wilderness areas, I must admit I’m an easy audience for survival stories. So Infinite Storm grabbed me right away. Based on a true story that occurred October 17, 2010, on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington (which I’ve climbed in good weather), the action focuses for almost the entire film on two people: Pam Bales and John. Pam is intent on saving the man she calls John, discovered nearly frozen, close to death. It turns out that Pam needs a bit of saving herself.

Reviews

INFINITE STORM – Review by Carol Cling

March 15, 2022March 19, 2022 Carol Cling Billy Howle, Denis O’Hare, Infinite Storm, Malgorzata Szumowska, Naomi Watts, Pam Bales

Sometimes you’re the rescuer. Sometimes you’re the one who needs rescuing. And sometimes you’re both. That’s certainly the case with Pam Bales, the flinty focus of the fact-based drama Infinite Storm. As embodied by the indefatigable Naomi Watts, she’s a veritable force of nature.

Reviews

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN – Review by Maitland McDonagh

July 15, 2021July 18, 2021 Maitland McDonagh Alec Utgoff, Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert, Never Gonna Snow Again, polish films

Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s slyly pretty fable in which an interloper’s healing frees members of a miserable community from their various repressions and discontents, is slyly funny–no belly laughs, just an accumulation of weird and unexpected digressions that offset the film’s pervasive atmosphere of isolation, loneliness and slow suffocation by social conventions.

Guest Posts Reviews

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN – Review by Marietta Steinhart (Guest Post)

May 7, 2021May 7, 2021 Jennifer Merin Agata Kulesza, Alec Utgoff, guest post, Maja Ostaszewska, Malgorzata Szumowska, marietta steinhart, Michal Englert, Never Gonna Snow Again, the female gaze

There is a spellbinding sense of fairy tale realism to Małgorzata Szumowska’s latest, her first co-directed film with long-time cinematographer Michał Englert. Never Gonna Snow Again is loaded with social commentary – it’s wicked and quietly wonderful.

Movie of the Week Reviews

MOVIE OF THE WEEK April 10, 2020: THE OTHER LAMB

April 5, 2020April 10, 2020 Jennifer Merin 0 Comments betsy bozdech, Cate Marquis, cs mcmullen, elizabeth whittemore, jennifer merin, leslie combemale, loren king, Malgorzata Szumowska, marina antunes, motw, Movie of the Week, nikki baughan, Pam Grady, Raffey Cassidy, sandie angulo chen, susan wloszczyna, the other lamb

Stylish, intense, and thought-provoking, Malgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb is both a gripping coming-of-age story and a dark, disturbing fable about a community of women who find the necessary strength to push back against and escape from a stifling patriarchy that dictates everything about their behavior and expectations in life.

Reviews

THE OTHER LAMB – Review by Loren King

March 29, 2020April 5, 2020 Loren King 0 Comments C.S. McMullen, Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert, motw, Movie of the Week, Raffey Cassidy, the other lamb

Director Malgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb is a visually striking, quietly poetic but very bleak tale about an all-female cult living in a remote, dense forest. The women tend to real sheep as well as to their Charles Manson-like leader (Michiel Huisman, who seems a bit young to have fathered girls who appear older than tweens) who is known only as “The Shepherd.”

Reviews

THE OTHER LAMB – Review by Nikki Baughan

March 29, 2020April 5, 2020 Nikki Baughan 0 Comments Malgorzata Szumowska, motw, Movie of the Week, Raffey Cassidy, the other lamb

As the audience knows from the off and as Selah comes to realize, this is ultimately a familiar earthbound story of one man’s heinous abuse of power, and the danger of blind faith. And while Selah’s journey to realization and empowerment may not hold many narrative surprises, it’s nevertheless one that commands attention. Powerful performances and a commanding aesthetic make this an arresting watch.

Reviews

THE OTHER LAMB – Review by Leslie Combemale

March 29, 2020April 5, 2020 Leslie Combemale 0 Comments cs mcmullen, Malgorzata Szumowska, motw, Movie of the Week, Raffey Cassidy, the other lamb

The Other Lamb, the English-language debut of Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska feels like the fevered dream of a menstruating teen handmaid, if she were, say, “Of Donald.” It provokes the sort of disgust and repulsion we are experiencing on a daily basis when we watch the daily “press briefings”, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Reviews

THE OTHER LAMB – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

December 30, 2019April 5, 2020 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas 0 Comments catherine s. mcmullen, Malgorzata Szumowska, Raffey Cassidy, the other lamb

There is a palpable anger at patriarchal institutions that bleeds from Catherine S. McMullen’s pen as much as it does through Szumowska’s camera as they unpack the precise mechanics of dominance and submission, and how such abuses can become naturalized and institutionalized until stepping back and asking ‘why?’ becomes a radical act in its own right.