Sławomir Fabicki dared to make a film about a topic that is rarely tackled in Polish cinema. “Lęk” received the Audience Award at the Warsaw Film Festival. He took part in the main competition of the Golden Lions and received two nominations for the Eagles – Magdalena Cielecka and Marta Nieradkiewicz had a chance to win the statuette, both for the best leading female role.
There has never been a movie like this before. “Fear” is about a taboo topic
“Fear” discusses the topic of assisted suicide, which still remains a taboo and divides society. In the film we meet two sisters – Małgorzata and Łucja, who set off on a journey. Road cinema allows the viewer to get to know the characters of both women, but also the specificity of their relationship. We soon learn that Małgorzata suffers from cancer and that she went to Switzerland with her sister to commit assisted suicide. Lucy tries to stop her.
The production received praise from reviewers for its economy and lack of display of suffering. As we read in Onet’s review, there is no room here to assess the justice of the actions of any of the characters. “There is no moralizing or judgment here. Fabicki approaches his heroines with empathy, understanding both of them,” writes Karol Barzowski. This opinion is also shared by Bartosz Staszczyszyn from Culture.pl, who emphasizes that the aim of the production was not journalism and convincing the viewer to take a specific position on a controversial issue. “‘Fear’ is, in this sense, a ‘film for adults’ in which human truth is more important than journalism and ideological tensions,” writes the critic.
The film about assisted suicide delighted critics. Cielecka and Nieradkiewicz starred in “Fear”.
There has never been a film like this in Poland before. It was both a directing and acting challenge. In an interview for Interia, Marta Nieradkiewicz admitted that participating in “Lęk” was a very important professional task for her. “There are many people among us who have encountered cancer, whose loved ones were or are terminally ill. It is a borderline situation that everyone deals with in a different way. It is an important experience for me as an actress, to be part of a film that opens a space for debate on euthanasia, punctures the taboo topic,” says the actress.
Source: Gazeta
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