- Poland
DER MASSEUR
Synopsis
Zhenia (Alec Utgoff) comes from Ukraine, from the area around Chernobyl, and one morning stands at the Polish border with a massage table. Shortly afterwards he goes door to door in a development of identical villas outside Warsaw. His clientele – an exhausted mother, a cancer patient, a dog owner, a former soldier – hand him their backs and soon their worries as well. After each treatment they find themselves, for a moment, in a snow-covered forest. Zhenia says little, occasionally hypnotises, and becomes a screen for the neighbourhood’s projections: healer, lover, stranger. In “Der Masseur” (Poland 2020), Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert tell of a middle class that has everything and longs for deliverance.
The film combines satire on the Polish suburbs with a fable that never resolves; the original title, “Śniegu już nigdy nie będzie”, means “It will never snow again”. Englert, otherwise Szumowska’s cinematographer, co-directs here for the first time. It premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival 2020; the film was Poland’s submission for the Oscar. “Der Masseur” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2020.
Festival
Shown at the 2020 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
