Bleak, haunting, and quietly electrifying, Winter of the Crow is a spooky thriller directed by Kasia Adamik and written by Sandra Buchta.
Winter of the Crow premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival before being screened at Rome Film Festival, bringing Italian audiences an edge of their seats with this brand new Cold War thriller. Directed by Kasia Adamik and written by Sandra Buchta, the film adapts Olga Tokarczuk’s short story Professor Andrews Goes to Warsaw for the big screen, following in a long tradition of collaboration between Polish literature and cinema. It stars Lesley Manville as Joan, a British psychology professor who travels to Poland to deliver a lecture in late 1981 on the subject of schizophrenia, only to find herself caught in the chaos of a country on the eve of imposing martial law.
Manville brings a brilliant, emotionally restrained performance to a character who is as icy as she is intelligent. What begins as a story of frustration (a lost suitcase, a missed hotel booking, a conference overshadowed by student protests) spirals suddenly into the claustrophobic depths of martial law, closed borders and brutal state violence under the heaviest of Warsaw’s wintery skies. Joan finds herself in the middle of a nightmare as she realises first hand the terrifying ease with which life can fall apart from one minute to the next.
There are brilliant reminders of the struggles of life pre-technology; the lack of instant news, no translation app on hand, no way to call home or a friend or find a government embassy without internet maps. Whilst at times the film’s setting and cinematography leans a little towards Eastern Bloc period drama cliche, I remained on the edge of my seat for the entire 112 minute runtime.
Bleak, haunting, and quietly electrifying, Winter of the Crow is a spooky thriller that I’d recommend for anyone who wants to get their heart pounding on an autumnal night at the cinema.
