Winter of the Crow explores the period of martial law in Poland in 1981 through the eyes of an English woman. Dr. Joan Andrews (Lesley Manville) is a not-unexpectedly staunch and particular academic. As December arrives, she is invited to a conference in Warsaw to talk about her long-gestating research. She soon discovers that the students who invited her have to deal with a lot more than research, tests, and assignments under the current government. Led by Alina (Zofia Wichłacz), they use a small moment at the conference to try to generate public support for resisting the actions of the government. Soon after, the country declares martial law, scattering Dr. Andrews’ hosts and leaving her to navigate Poland with her wits, a foreign language most cannot understand, and her Polaroid camera.
The film builds a very dreary atmosphere as soon as Dr. Andrews touches down in Poland. Visually, there is no hope or brightness to be found. The film’s colour palette barely allows any secondary colours or warm tones to protrude. Thus, it features a lot of grey, and when yellow does enter the frame, it’s very yellow, almost piss-coloured and ugly, which reflects the moods of everyone in the scenes. Still, it looks classically well-shot and uses light in distinct and memorable ways throughout different scenes of tension-filled action.
The first part of the movie certainly deals with the idea that the audience will probably not appreciate Dr. Andrews, for clear reasons. She is someone who comes from a different world, is a fish out of water, and whose initial concern is that her trip will not be as hospitable as she anticipated. Her desires for clean service, hot, perhaps enviable meals, or the delights of tourism are quickly brushed aside by her hosts. What the film then does is show how she has to adapt to the chaos in the country and look to use her wits to help create positive change and act in ways that may help others.
This may be the sentiment the film is going for, but it is hard to achieve. With a shorter runtime that quickly becomes more bogged down in Dr. Andrews’ attempts to escape the military and other threats, it is hard to ever get a better grasp of her character. Dr. Andrews is herself such an audience surrogate that the attempts to give her depth often fall flat. Lesley Manville does a very good job with her performance though, and she is able to go through enough unique scenarios that the film remains engaging throughout.
Dr. Andrews’ use of a camera helps demonstrate how the universal language of images can be essential to storytelling and communication across language barriers. In this way, the film celebrates the art of taking images itself and presenting history and evidence in visual form.
The political ideas are also interesting to ponder as you reckon with how a military government attempts to take over and repress any dissenting voices during volatile times. Its anti-military-authority ideas, while not unique, are certainly relevant at a time when European nations are dealing with border security and a country like Russia is using military power to try to impose its vision of itself.
One hopes that, like Dr. Andrews, we see these injustices and report them to the world. We do what we can to encourage greater powers to help nullify the violence that a dangerous, control-minded regime can implement.
Winter of the Crow is available in theatres now.
