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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Peter Bradshaw

The Balcony Movie review – funny/sad film that offers a view into strangers’ lives

The Balcony Movie
The Balcony Movie Photograph: PR IMAGE

Polish film-maker Paweł Łoziński has curated this amusing, cumulatively melancholy documentary which he has shot from the first-floor balcony in his flat in the Saska Kępa district of Warsaw. Over a number of years, and with a microphone discreetly attached to the chainlink fence at street level, he simply calls down to people going past and asks them to stop and talk about something, anything.

There are a lot of dog-walkers and people with babies; most people smile or grimace politely and say they are not special enough to be featured in a film. A priest says he can’t talk because he is carrying the Holy Sacrament. Others obligingly talk: one woman sings a rather beautiful song, a man talks about being homeless, having just got out of prison. People confide their sadness at the loss of a loved one, though one woman sheepishly confesses her profound happiness that her abusive husband has died. A couple of tough-looking guys carrying the Polish flag talk about patriotism and attack “equal rights and faggotry”.

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