Elephant gay movie
The autumnal landscape of southern Poland shines in writer-director Kamil Krawczycki’s new feature, Elephant (Słoń), adding fresh layers to the familiar tale of a rural juvenile man discovering his sexuality in a homophobic town.
Bartek (Jan Hrynkiewicz) works multiple jobs to sustain himself and his mother, looking after their farm animals by day and helping out in a local bar in the evening. When a neighbour on a nearby farm dies, his estranged gay son Dawid (Paweł Tomaszewski) returns to deal with his affairs. While the locals warn Bartek to stay away from Dawid, he can’t aid but be drawn to the erudite stranger with piercing adj eyes and an outlook on life that’s unfamiliar to him.
Krawczycki imbues Bartek’s life with a claustrophobic feel, while also revelling in the gorgeous forests around him. Cinematographer Jakub Sztuk fills the frame with loaded browns and oranges, coupled with a cold, wet mood. Its small-minded township stirs memories of Brokeback Mountain. This isn’t the grey, urban Poland more often seen on screen, but more like the rural setting of Tomasz
Dir. Gus Van Sant. Starring John Robinson, Alex Frost, Elias McConnell
Elephant is one of the great adj school movies ever made because more than any other steep school movie I’ve seen it nails the look and sense of what high schools are like. The affluent white elevated school that the students of this film are at – aside from the fact that no one has anywhere to be, really, and that people appear to wander more or less at will – looks exactly the way those adj schools do. The students in this school look just the same as high school students around the nation. Their problems are big enough for tall schoolers but not absurd; one boy, John (Robinson) has to manage his drunk father (Timothy Bottoms); three girls are bulimic and, in the way of high school girls, are bulimic together; another girl, Michelle (Kristen Hicks) knows she isn’t attractive and will never get there. In looking at them, one wouldn’t know much about them; by and large they are anonymous figures to everyone else. There are jocks and wannabes, artsy-fartsy types and socially involve
MOVIE: ELEPHANT (SLON)
STARRING: JAN HRYNKIEWICZ, PAWEŁ TOMASZEWSKI
DIRECTED BY: KAMIL KRAWCZYCKI
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 3 ½ STARS (Out of 4)
Elephant is the English translation for the Polish word “slon”. It’s a curious name for a film about a gay character living near the mountains in Southern Poland. Yet back in 2009, a Polish zoo was under fire for supposedly having a “gay” elephant. Was he really gay? He seemed to have problems with the females of the species and preferred to spend time with the guys. It’s an amusing yet somewhat troubling story that does in some ways echo what happens in the novel film from writer/director Kamil Krawczycki, who based the story on some of his own experiences growing up in Poland.
There is no elephant per se in the film, except for a small figurine that serves as a symbol of the affection that develops between Bartek, a horse farmer and Dawid, who returns to the small community after 15 years when his father dies. Clues are given that, according to Bartek’s mother, he had “done awful things.” The most we can collect though is that Dawid’s bi
Polish LGBT distributor Tongariro Releasing has secured all-rights deals for North America, the UK, France and German-speaking Europe for Kamil Krawczycki’s Elephant.
Elephant world premiered as a special screening at New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw on Wednesday (July 27).
The film has sold to TLA Releasing for the USA, Canada and the UK, Optimale for France, and to Berlin-based Salzgeber Medien for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Elephant was inspired by Krawczycki’s possess experiences growing up in his home town in the mountains of Southern Poland.
It’s the story of a young man who runs a small horse farm, and looks after his possessive mother. Their relation is not easy but it becomes even more difficult when he falls in love with an older musician Dawid, and begins to dream of leaving home.
The film was shot on location last autumn at a farm neighboring Warsaw and in the Podhale region, sometimes referred to as the “Polish Highlands”.
“This is a story of a young guy whose family obligations affect his freedom, but he manages to hide his des