When I showed up on the set of the film “Fuck Mickiewicz” with a camera last year, little was known about the details of the production. I was wondering then whether it would be a film that would actually respond to the needs of the Generation Z audience, which it de facto talks about. Especially since Polish productions, when it comes to films and series, rarely appeal to young viewers.
Film critics turned off the teen film after 12 minutes. Case?
However, it is difficult to find reliable information about the real impact of the film among zoomers. However, I came across the opinion of two reviewers – Zwierz popkulturny, i.e. Katarzyna Czajka-Kominiarczuk and Maciej Tomaszewski, who runs the “Słodko-gorzkie” profile. Independently, they wrote that they only lasted until the 12th minute of the film.
The journalist wrote in the introduction of her Facebook post that she is rarely able to watch a film to the end, but because of this dose of cringe she couldn’t cope. The author of the cultural fanpage expressed a similar tone and also indicated that his “Krinjoscale” had been exceeded. He criticizes the production for its artificiality and pseudo-modernity, and ends his extensive entry with the words:
Fuck Polish entertainment cinema. At least this time. Don’t believe the Netflix ranking, where this thing is in first place in the ‘most watched films’ category.
The first 12 minutes of the film may discourage you from continuing to watch it. Everything is happening everywhere and at once
In turn, I watched “Fuck Mickiewicz” in its entirety and my overall assessment – which I will come to later – is not that drastic, but the reviewers are right about one thing. The beginning of the film is hopeless and I’m not surprised that someone who knows cinema well could feel embarrassed. And what do we see in the first twelve minutes of the film? A lot of things and characters.
The production begins with a music video sequence during which rappers Olszakumpel and Janusz Walczuk perform the song “Bunt”, created for the film. The former is a streamer and rapper who rose to fame after joining the hip-hop supergroup Chillwagon. And the latter is also involved in rap, but belongs to the rival collective SB Maffija.
However, they are both in their 20s, and their listeners are mostly younger than them. Often, their age is even much younger than the production’s protagonists, who are in their second year of high school. In addition to rapping, we also see scenes from the everyday life of an unusual school, where teachers take sedatives before lessons and get hit in the head with a ball before entering the school.
For the next ten minutes we observe: the conversation of the main character, Dante (Hugo Tarres), with the probation officer, who warns him against further consequences of inappropriate behavior; unnatural outbreak of rebellion among students of class 2b; taking a traumatized teacher by ambulance; gathering together a worried teaching staff unable to tame the “worst class in school”; Dante’s first meeting with his future girlfriend and finally the appearance of Jan Sienkiewicz, an “awesome Polish teacher”, played by Dawid Ogrodnik.
And it was probably the fragment in which the rebellious teacher enters his new classroom that caused the greatest shivers of embarrassment among the reviewers. Why? This whole scene is absurd. As a greeting, the teacher throws one student off the bench and then engages him in a freestyle battle, i.e. a rap duel with arguments. The teacher wins this fight, but later Dante enters the class, having just finished his work on the door to the vice-principal’s office.
The main character is an artistic soul deep down and knows that the new Polish teacher is a writer, but in order to maintain the spotless label of the worst in the class, he decides to ridicule him in front of the entire class. She sits in his chair, puts her feet on the desk and says that he won’t do miracles in this class. Sienkiewicz then lowers his tone and assigns homework related to the Romantic era. The biggest class bully shouts: “Fuck Mickiewicz”, which the teacher responds with great euphoria, changing the topic of the essay to:
Fuck Mickiewicz, or shades of romantic love.
Later it gets better, but it’s not good. From me, the production gets 5 points out of 10
And this sums up the first 12 minutes of the film’s action, after which some people stopped watching it. Is it better later? Yes. The entire film is characterized by a fast and jagged plot straight from TikTok, but this should not be surprising. After all, this is a movie for teenagers who regularly watch content on social media that is backed by influencers, streamers, and other people who have become famous for a reason.
Therefore, in my opinion, the whole thing resembles a combination of para-documentaries (which are familiar to Generation Z) and youth series from the West. I was most reminded of Netflix’s “School for the Elite,” the first three seasons of which I watched last year. In “Fuck Mickiewicz” we also present the theme of a difficult childhood, teenagers’ conflicts with the mafia, “difficult affairs” of adults, and at the end of the film there is even bloodshed. And there is still a love story in the background.
However, all this was only scratched. The film lasts an hour and a half and my first thought after watching it was that the whole thing would work better as a series. Then all the threads could be developed more, and the plot itself and its message could go in a different direction. And you could pay more attention to the rap inserts or completely abandon them. Because in the movie they only appear at the beginning.
“Fuck Mickiewicz” is not a high-class production and I would not put it on the same shelf as “Absolute debutants” or “Ostatni komers”, quoted by Maciej Tomaszewski, which show signs of artistic cinema. A film about students of the Secondary School. Stanisław Bareja is pure entertainment based on simple patterns, created for teenagers, which was not available to us before. And looking at the comments on the film’s TikTok channel, one gets the impression that teenagers want more.
I watched it 38 times. I’m waiting for the second part.
Greetings? I love the movie with all my heart, I’m waiting for the second part.
Jesus, I’ve watched this movie about 50 times and I’m waiting for the second part.
And although the creators did go too far in some moments, especially in the introduction of the film, I see a certain change in it when it comes to honestly portraying Polish youth. The language spoken by the characters can actually be heard from young people on the street, and is not artificially created by many older people. However, the most exaggerated characters are only episodic characters, so their stereotypes do not dominate the narrative.
Polish youth prefer local stars. For now, mainly in music, but who knows…
To sum up, I think that we can expect even more of this type of production in the near future. Polish music charts are conquered by local artists who are the favorites of Generation Z. However, I have often had the impression that these are simply Polish versions of songs that had conquered the whole world a moment earlier. As an example, I can give you a song that sounds disturbingly similar to the song. However, this does not bother young people.
Therefore, it seems to me that filmmakers may come to the conclusion that Polish youth may want more films and series with a familiar pattern, but with a native cast. This could lead to one good thing. Many talented young actors and actresses will be able to quickly spread their wings and show themselves to audiences of their own age. It’s a pity that they will probably be productions that they may not be entirely satisfied with after many years. But as they say, “you have to start somewhere.”
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
