23/05/2024 - Małgorzata Imielska’s intimate documentary, both tender and heartbreaking, features a young woman struggling with mental-health relapses and a craving for personal independence

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to make one happy. Like in the case of Gosia, whose goal after two years in a psychiatric hospital is simply to “go back to normal”: to buy new clothes that fit her and get a decent haircut, take her SAT exam and apply for university, try living alone, and find someone to love. Achieving any of these aims makes Gosia glow, especially if the voices and hallucinations that go hand in hand with her diagnosis happen to leave her in peace.

Unfortunately, they return sooner or later, despite therapy and medication, so Gosia learns to smile from the heart when she manages to embrace the short cloudless moments between crises. Isn't the joy in life found by appreciating the more luminous pauses that cut through the darkness before it finally takes over? This seems to be the implication of Just Hear Me Out, which celebrated its world premiere at Millennium Docs Against Gravity, and grabbed two Special Mentions in the Best Polish Film Award and the Arthouse Cinema Association Award categories in the Polish Competition (see the news).

Following her character over three years, experienced documentarian Małgorzata Imielska has succeeded in building up an all-encompassing reflection of Gosia’s struggle for life through the ups and downs, during the “sunny” days, even when it’s grey outside, but also through scary outbursts of desperation, self-hatred, suicidal thoughts and overall anxiety. In addition, the camera delicately approaches Gosia’s mother in conversation with her daughter or in group therapy for mutual support, as she seems more willing to appear on screen than the father, who is there but is shy, his presence more sporadic and less participatory. Indeed, the respectful distance that the filmmaking team keeps from the family in the scenes where they don’t speak directly to the camera is one of the various aspects to be admired about this film. We see their figures either from afar, or through trees, window security bars and other protective barriers, so as to remind us that we are nothing more than spies in their private space. It’s as if Imielska is silently quoting Krzysztof Kieślowski, who says, in the 1995 film about himself I’m So-so, that there are places and moments where the documentary filmmaker isn’t allowed to go with his camera – the reason why he gave up documentaries and made fiction only.

Furthermore, the helmer does indeed make an effort to understand, to really hear Gosia and focus on her personality, instead of juxtaposing her with the inevitably hostile world around her – a method often applied in socially engaged or simply activistic documentaries. This way, rather than being portrayed as a victim of her illness, the health system or the indifference surrounding her, Gosia is shown as a controversial human being whom most of us can identify with. We see her admirable strength to cope with the unpredictability of her own problematic brain while, in parallel with this, finding the energy to show compassion for her friends, who are also in trouble.

DoP Zuzanna Zachara Hassairi’s discreet but also penetrative lens (she is known for her exquisite work with Lidia Duda, another sage and sensitive Polish documentary filmmaker) catches and highlights the nuances in mood between a vacuum-like reality and its reflection in the distorted mirror of the soul’s dark side, and between desolation and hope.

Just Hear Me Out was produced by Poland’s Studio Filmowe Kalejdoskop, the Mazovia Warsaw Film Fund and Telewizja Polska.