Bittersweet but life-affirming, Polish documentary maker Agnieszka Zwiefka’s Vika! offers a close-up observational character study of Wirginia “Wika” Szmyt, an 84-year-old Warsaw grandmother who has carved an unlikely second career in her twilight years as a nightclub DJ. Zwiefka mostly tells a joyful story here about a gloriously eccentric outlier refusing to go gently into that good night. But there are inevitably poignant undercurrents too, with questions of mortality and family friction lurking just below the surface. Making its German premiere in DOK Leipzig this week, this mostly feel-good yarn should be an easy sell to other festivals. Lively musical interludes, a generally upbeat feminist message, and brisk running time will also boost its appeal to small screen platforms, with older viewers an obvious key market.
A World War II survivor with two husbands and three grown-up children behind her, Szmyt began her DJ sideline after she retired from teaching juvenile delinquents for three decades. A cult figure in Warsaw, she plays an eclectic selection of pop, rock and dance music for mostly older audiences at the Hulakula concert hall every week. But she also mans the turntables at clubs and festivals aimed at younger crowds, including queer pride carnivals and late-night techno parties, where she is warmly welcomed with reverential cheers.
Szmyt defiantly dresses, dances and parties like a much younger woman, with an affirmative mantra and tireless energy. Living alone in a modest but cosy apartment, she appears outwardly content, but has a nagging dread of falling sick and losing her independence. This hedonistic golden girl confesses that she prefers the company of younger people because that fools her into feeling young again. She gives inspirational talks to her fellow seniors, assuring them that “those who dance never grow old”. But behind their backs she is quietly disparaging: “I’d rather play for the gays,” she whispers.
Fond of salty language, glittery outfits and fluffy kittens, Szmyt is a highly engaging documentary subject, even if she has her prickly diva side. Following a fall and a hip replacement, she recently enlisted an assistant for her DJ gigs, her “borrowed husband” Krzysztof, a mere baby of 71. He calmly absorbs her tantrums: “You’re passive-aggressive, uptight and fucked up,” she snaps at him before a fraught outdoor performance to a tiny, rain-soaked audience. But his patience is clearly not infinite. In glumly comic asides, he reveals he is planning his exit from thankless sidekick duties.
At times, Zwiefka teasingly hints that Szmyt’s relentlessly upbeat attitude may be a brittle facade. Visiting her childhood hometown, Vilnius in Lithuania, she tearfully recalls hiding from Nazi invaders in a closet, and losing most of her family during the war. This is presumably an oblique reference to the Holocaust, which the film leaves frustratingly vague. Szmyt also seems blithely estranged from her own grown-up children and grandchildren, insisting she is too busy living her best life. “No matter how close the relationship,” she shrugs, “an old person is always a problem, a burden for young people.” For their part, her family disdain her “disco friends” and lack of interest in their lives. There are hidden layers of trauma and tension here that Zwiefka could have probed more deeply.
Maintaining a snappy pace and sparkly visual aesthetic, Zweifka punctuates more conventional observational documentary scenes with a handful of staged song-and-dance numbers that pay fond homage to the golden era of dansingi, or traditional Polish dancehalls. As Szmyt wanders around a dreamlike Warsaw, thronged by dancers young and old, these fantasy-tinged sequences play like commentaries on her inner life, from the wistful nostalgia of Michelle Gurevich’s autumnal ballad “Blue Eyes Unchanged” to the bulletproof optimism of Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic “I Will Survive”. In a sweet final flourish, the director dedicates Vika! to “the silver generation, our parents and grandparents, and to our future selves”.
Director, screenwriter: Agnieszka Zwiefka
Cinematography: Monika Kotecka
Editing: Michal Poddebniak, Katarzyna Orzechowska
Music: Paivi Takala
Producers: Katarzyna Slesicka, Anna Stylinska
Production company: My Way Studio (Poland)
World sales: Deckert Distribution, Germany
Venue: DOK Leipzig festival (Audience Competition)
In Polish
74 minutes
