When an activist's son is killed by the police, the Polish state attempts
to silence the only witness.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jan P. Matuszynski
Starring: Tomasz Ziętek, Sandra KorzeniakMateusz Górski, Agnieszka Grochowska, Tomasz Kot, Robert Wieckiewicz, Jacek
Braciak
A dramatization of true events, Leave No Traces' title refers to the police practice of striking parts of the body
that won’t leave any noticeable bruising. It's something cops around the
world have been doing for decades, but in this particular case it's the
Poland of 1983, where cops have been particularly conditioned to believe
they're above the law.
The victim is Grzegorz Przemyk (Mateusz Gorski), the teenage son
of poet/anti-communist politician Barbara Sadowska (Sandra Korzeniak). He's picked up along with his friend Jurek Popiel (Tomasz Ziętek) by a pair of cops who take a dislike to their long hair. Brought to a
local police station, the pair are badly beaten. Grzegorz is so severely
injured that he dies from his wounds the following day.
As the only witness, Jurek finds himself a wanted man. Under normal
circumstances he would likely be "disappeared" but the story leaks to
the BBC World Service. Wishing to put on a good face for the world, the
Polish authorities set about clearing the cops of any wrongdoing while
framing a pair of ambulance orderlies for the killing. Meanwhile
pressure is put on Jurek's parents to convince their son to retract his
story or have their lives destroyed.
Leave No Traces opens in energetic fashion with a
one-take tour through the commune-like apartment Barbara shares with
various sympathisers. Things move swiftly as we witness the central
crime and the various players are introduced. But by the halfway point
of this near three hour movie, fatigue begins to set in. There are too
many scenes that simply repeat the same point that's already been made
several times prior, and the sprawling cast of characters could have
benefitted from some amalgamation for the sake of tighter storytelling.
What starts out like a gripping conspiracy thriller morphs into
something resembling a prestige TV mini-series. As such, it may work
better viewed at home and broken into more easily digestible
chunks.
That said, the film contains some stellar performances from its
ensemble cast. In its best moments it's a reminder of a time when
Hollywood would commit to telling such stories. But that ensemble is
also the film's biggest stumbling block, as the story moves back and
forth between characters so often that we never really get to know who
these people are, simply what they represent. Perhaps the most
fascinating characters are Jerzy's parents, who find themselves weighing
the cost of supporting their son with facing a monolithic state that
could crush them like insects. Had the movie refined its focus on this
tortured couple, played brilliantly by Jacek Braciak and
Agnieszka Grochowska, it may have made for a far more
involving and relatably human watch.
