17/03/2025 - Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak’s film is at times a confused reflection on free will, viewed through the lens of three women who live an empty life in a gilded cage

l-r: Daniela Komędera, Helena Ganjalyan and Magdalena Fejdasz-Hanczewska in Glorious Summer

In Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak’s Glorious Summer, screened in the Narrative Feature Competition of Austin’s SXSW, three young women live in an elegant, timeless palace, where they’re shielded from the sorrows of the world and kept in a sort of repetitive loop where, in multiple languages, they keep telling themselves positive mantras. The movie spends most of its 88-minute running time in this dream-like state, only hinting at the potential outside world, which comes in predominantly towards the end of the story.

The questions that arise while watching the film are deep, ethical and virtually unanswerable. Is safety any better than freedom? Is ignorance better than a hurtful truth? These internal human conflicts are interesting, but very little in the way the film presents the dilemmas is bold, challenging or original enough. The concept of a group of people far removed from society, protected from the dangers of the world, is not particularly new either, having filled thousands of pages of books, as well as having been the subject of films and plays. One relatively recent example is Kazuo Ishiguro’s famous novel Never Let Me Go, the film adaptation of which was directed by Mark Romanek.

As the directors’ statement confirms, the film is clearly influenced by Yorgos Lanthimos and Ari Aster, both in its look and in its character building. Despite the feeling we get of watching something we have already seen – not just visually, but also, as mentioned earlier, in terms of the topic – Glorious Summer’s set-up still manages to come off as original in its overall appearance. It is interesting to note that an audience composed of cinephiles may be either intrigued or disturbed by this sensation of odd familiarity, and that this point could represent a double-edged sword.

Shot on 16 mm, the feature lures the audience into its weird routines and rituals, while at the same time making one feel like an intruder or a voyeur, secretly spying on something that can’t quite be grasped. The stunning cinematography by Tomasz Woźniczka and the detailed set design by Katarzyna Tomczyk imbue the story with a sensual texture, which probably constitutes the most effective element of the film. The attention to detail is without a doubt exquisite.

Co-director Helena Ganjalyan also acts, alongside Magdalena Fejdasz-Hanczewska, Daniela Komędera and Weronika Humaj. The overall result of the work of the ensemble cast is cohesive and helps the confused and occasionally weak script to find its voice. The direction has clearly been a key element in achieving the best possible result, even with a story that needed some fine-tuning here and there. Nevertheless, the movie still exudes a sense of imperfection and incompleteness, stemming from a lack of full control over every aspect. In this case, the major downfall is the failure to build a solid background for the world in which this distorted fairy tale takes place.

Glorious Summer was produced by Poland’s Rozbrat Films and co-financed by the Polish Film Institute. Alief has acquired its world sales rights.