“Magdalena Kolesnik is superb and uses her moments cleverly…Her portrayal was the sort of delicious surprise film festivals provide, and she made me fall for a character I would normally despise“
Con Nats
4 /5 floor squats
There’s a great range of films on for the Europa Europa Film Festival and here is the first of three my picks from a fascinating programme.
I once met a couple whose daughter was a social media influencer, and while they were proud of her success, they had no idea of what she does and how it all works. Influencers are self-made social media personalities who due to the immense number of followers they have, become perfect conduits for advertisers to flog their products. It’s a way to commercialise your non-real friendships.
Sylwia (Magdalena Kolesnik) is a Polish fitness influencer with an incredible 600,000 followers and this film follows her for three days. It takes into her world so closely, at first this felt like a documentary – lots of shaky hand-held close-ups and a total focus on Sylwia. It’s only when she catches a stalker masturbating in his car does that illusion break. There isn’t a lot of plot here; this is more of a character portrayal.
But Sylwia isn’t your typical shallow, self-indulgent product shrill. Writer-director Magnus von Horn has developed something much more difficult – an empathetic, nuanced, balanced character portrayal. Sure Sywia is self-indulgent, but she is also very generous. She gives time to fans and lots of love to her feckless mother. She can be sweet, but also angry; confident but also vulnerable – so much so, that she attracts criticism and almost loses a sponsor. This character is multi-dimensional.
Magdalena Kolesnik is superb and uses her moments cleverly. Her heavily made-up, blood splattered, pimply face close-up towards the end says so much more about her character and thoughts than heavy dialogue could. Her portrayal was the sort of delicious surprise film festivals provide, and she made me fall for a character I would normally despise. But I still won’t buy her workout DVD.
Con Nats, On The Screen
