A vast junk-filled warehouse in one of Poland’s poorest cities may sound like an unlikely location for a fun docu-comedy, but first-time feature director Lukasz Kowalski manages to unearth plenty of glum levity and deadpan humour in The Pawnshop, behind the mountains of used electrical goods, second-hand wedding dresses and broken-down dreams. Currently in the middle of a prize-winning festival run, Kowalski’s bittersweet observational gem screens this week at Dok Leipzig as part of a selection of films shortlisted for the upcoming Doc Alliance awards. Already a fest-blessed favourite, its light-hearted treatment of heavy subject matter feels well suited to attract keen interest from big and small screen platforms. Canal Plus Poland and the Polish Film Institute are already on board as backers.
Billing itself as the largest pawnshop in Europe, the shabby megastore at the heart of Kowlalski’s film is located in a run-down residential area of Bytom, a former coal-mining city in the Upper Silesia region, which is sometimes called the “Polish Detroit” after suffering decades of economic decline. The boss is bullish showman Wieslaw, a penniless entrepreneur who radiates a slightly desperate belief that wealth and success lie just around the corner, like one of John Steinbeck’s “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”. The more grounded half of the management team is Wieslaw’s brassy, big-hearted, peroxide-haired business and life partner Jolanta, who is given to wearing fur coats in the shop, mainly because they cannot afford to heat it during the sub-zero winter.
It is plain from the opening frame of The Pawnshop that business is bad, with poverty and unemployment rife in the area, and barely a handful of customers visiting the dauntingly drab store each day. Even the few that do drop in are often less interested in shopping than they are in tearfully venting about their bleak home lives: domestic violence, alcoholism, acrimonious divorce and bitter custody battles seem to be recurring motifs. Wieslaw and Jolanta also bicker frequently themselves, especially on wages day, when they often have to decide between paying the bills of paying themselves. “You’re gonna work until the end of your life and longer!” she warns him during one of their gentler spats. But there is a tenderness behind these hot-blooded outbursts and blunt insults.
The Pawnshop could have easily have been a classic social-realist poverty safari for voyeuristic festival audiences, but Kowalski commendably resists those familiar tropes. He mostly finds joyful defiance and colourful characters here, keeping their spirits up with shared jokes, flirty banter and small acts of kindness. These are the riches of the poor. Two of the store’s younger employees, Tomek and Sandra (aka Roxy), are also in the early stages of a new romance, even if there are ominous signs that it may not survive Tomek’s upcoming six-month jail sentence. But if anyone represents a hopeful future here, it is Agnieszka, a perma-scowling Taylor Swift lookalike given to dispensing hard-won wisdom about the terminal weakness and uselessness of men. Meanwhile, her latest unseen boyfriend is foolishly treating her badly and clearly cruising for a bruising.
At times the bittersweet mini-dramas that Kowalski captures here seem too conveniently well staged and comically absurd to be real, veering into the kind of fuzzy docu-fiction area occupied by Austrian director Ulrich Seidl. A catastrophic visit from an overconfident plumber that almost floods the shop is one of these. Likewise a tender mother-daughter exchange in which Sandra crushes her little girl Milena’s innocent dreams with adult cynicism. “When we are little, we think we can do anything,” she says. “But when we grow up the lack of confidence kills us. Remember this.” Brutally funny stuff, even if it feels scripted.
Shot with classically Polish precision by Stanislaw Cuske, and bouncing along on a playfully jaunty score by Krzysztof A. Janczak, The Pawnshop is a cheerfully slight and unassuming work. Its open-ended finale does not deliver any profound insights, political polemics or neat narrative resolutions. But as it moves symbolically from winter to spring, Kowalksi’s charming debut slowly comes to feel like a gentle celebration of community, human resilience and the kindness of strangers.
Director, screenwriter: Lukasz Kowalski
Cast: Jolanta Janieszewska, Wieslaw Makowski, Agnieszka Kalinowska, Sandra Rzezniczek, Tomek Borek
Cinematography: Stanislaw Cuske
Editing: Adriana Fernandez Castellanos, Filip Kowalski, Jakub Darewski, Kosma Kowalczyk
Producers: Anna Mazerant, Lukasz Kowalski
Music: Krzysztof A. Janczak
Production companies: 4.30 Studio (Poland), Silesia Film Commission (Poland)
World sales: Syndicado Film Sales
Venue: Dok Leipzig (Doc Alliance Award)
In Polish
81 minutes
