Bad education and wrong upbringing methods pile up behind the locked doors of a secret training apartment.

Hatched at the Short Films Competition of the 2017 Festival de Cannes with “Time to Go”, director Grzegorz Mołda debuts with a mightily provocative and morbidly funny dark dramedy, which is most probably inspired by admiration for Michael Haneke and Yorgos Lanthimos. Awarded in post-production and successfully screened at two Polish festivals (Wrocław, Gdynia), the film avoids copy-pasting the grand auteurs and benefits from daring fresh ideas.

Less known, but internationally experienced actor Michal Zielinski plays criminal teenager Karol, forced to live on parole in a small flat instead of prison. Extremely unconventional and attractive teacher Marta (first ever film role for professional dancer Agnieszka Kryst) visits him every day with increasingly difficult lessons and unbelievable tasks to teach him good manners and give him a radical taste of freedom. Soon enough, they both form even weirder bonds.

Who might they really be? A son and a mother? A husband and a wife? A student and a teacher? A convict and a psychologist? The director cleverly pushes our boundaries of interpretation and imagination in a nasty, cruel, absurd and puzzling experiment of unnecessary re-education. The single location and the unpleasantly scraping tension never let us down.

Edvinas Pukšta