First was the word (review of ZERO, a film by Paweł Borowski)
ZERO, the début film by Pawel Borowski, is another example of the ongoing crisis in Polish screenwriting. What good is excellent direction, cinematography, acting or sound production – even if it is the best of its kind – if the most important organ in the body of the film – the script – is poorly thought through?
It’s not possible, thanks to its unusual narrative construction, to compress the plot of “Zero” down to a few lines. It seems the hub of this multi-layered story is the figure of the director of an unnamed company, who hires two rather wacky, down-at-heel detectives to follow his wife who, as we later learn, has rented a small apartment to host meetings with her lover. To spice up this narrative thread, Borowski dissects it with other plot lines: lingering shots direct our attention towards other characters – a taxi driver, newspaper seller, a nurse, a go-go dancer on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Initially, we follow these with interest, expecting something we haven’t yet seen before. The scope of this strategy brings to mind Anderson’s “Magnolia”, in the distance accentuated with echoes of Iñárritu and Arriaga. We are curious as to how this wildly varied group of individuals will be brought together by the all-powerful screenwriter’s pen.
