February 15th: THE LURE (Agnieszka Smoczyńska, 2015)

NOTE: This film will be projected in the high-definition Blu-ray format.

In 1980s Poland, two mermaid sisters come ashore and find work performing at a local nightclub but have trouble adjusting to life as humans.

Polish director Agnieszka Smoczńska had collaborated with writer Robert Bolesto on the short film Aria Diva, and were looking to work together again. Bolesto had the idea writing about the early life of his friends Barbara and Zuzanna Wronskie, sisters who grew up in a nightclub-performing family and now had their own band. Smoczńska, whose own mother managed a cabaret restaurant, also had a connection to this world. 

The sisters were reluctant to be part of something so realistic and personal and backed away from the project. Bolesto then proposed something more fantastical, with the sisters' story told in a more metaphorical way using mermaid mythology and a revisionist, horror take on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. Smoczńska wanted to stay away from the pretty, Disney-fied representation of the mythology, taking influence from Homer's "sirens" from The Odyssey, the imagery of photographers Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, and Polish painter Aleksandra Waliszewska, and exploring the awakening of womanhood through the conceit of a supernatural creatures.

From early on music was to be a major component of the film, with songs in a variety of styles (though all with a 1980s sheen) provided by the Wronskie sisters. Smoczńska spent a fair amount of time in pre-production with sound designer Marcin Macuk to help create the sonic atmosphere that would help to hone the script and find appropriate places and approaches for the musical numbers. Sounds for the sisters' telepathic communication were also developed, using a combination of various aquatic creatures.

The casting process took over a year, with Smoczyńska seeing up to 2,000 young women for her lead roles. The first selected was Marta Mazurek, who had won awards while attending the national theatre school, and been obsessed with mermaids from a young age. The other was Michelina Olszansaka, a child of actors who was herself a talented musician and published teen novelist. The actresses went through an extensive rehearsal process to play the otherworldly creatures, including long lessons with choreographer Kaya Kolodziejczyk on how to walk as someone who has never been on land or had legs before.

Smoczyńska and her cinematographer Jakub Kijowski came to the decision to shoot the musical numbers with elaborate camera movements and kinetic editing, inspired by the films of Bob Fosse (All That Jazz, Cabaret) and Bjork music videos, while the dramatic scenes would be done more realistic and in a handheld camera style. The shoot, taking place mostly in Warsaw, took only a month and included interiors in Adria, a once-famous, now abandoned nightclub that still had the decor of the story's period. The large tails seen on the girls in mermaid form weighed over 60 lbs and were operated by the actresses from inside, and augmented by minor CGI.

While the film had a mixed critical reception in Poland (where it was mis-advertised), it played and won awards at various international festivals including Chicago, Austin, Calgary, Nashville, and Sundance. It received a theatrical release in major U.S. cities in 2017.

Running time is 90 minutes.