DYM aka SMOKE (2007)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
In 7 minutes, Polish director Grzegorz Cisiecki conjures a boat load of emotions and hidden, repressed, and forbidden desires in such a tantalizing manner that you'll come away overwhelmed. "Dym" aka "Smoke" is an expressive experiment in surrealist cinema, but that is its cover - it is actually a penetrating film about overcoming sexual repression.
A young man is shown sitting in his room. He has a tape recorder. He turns it on, and right away we get shock cuts, the kind that get under your skin with the musical chords underscoring them. The shock cuts are to images of a woman with frizzy hair; a car ride with a heavy-set passenger, but whom? This is followed by a plate of blood with a tape recorder on it. There is also a woman dressed as a cleric, but why? Hmm. A party with members wearing masks that echo Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" and the costumed balls of many other films from the past, not excluding Kenneth Branagh's "Dead Again." A lesbian couple kiss. There is also a murder, or is it murdered innocence?
My guess is that "Dym" is actually about a young man with a girlfriend, who may or may not exist, and whose love for her has not been consummated. Sex is show in crimson red colors with smoke in the background - hazy, confusing and beyond his control. The young man might also be a priest, which would explain the lack of consummation. And the tape recorder triggers memories that he can't help but be immersed in.
"Dym" is exquisite subjective cinema, the kind I love because it centers on what a person thinks of the world around him. Surrealists, like Dali and Bunuel, always focused on the world as filtered through someone's mind. This "Dym" is fragmented, coarse, sinister, and valuable to our collective minds because it is relatable. It is about things we often think about, but refuse to discuss. Sex is as timely a subject as ever, particularly in the U.S. and our popular culture. Cisiecki has focused on sexual repression as filtered through memory and desire. Don't listen to those who call films like these pretentious or self-indulgent - this is masterful filmmaking. Cisiecki had me at surrealist.
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