Review by Robert O'Neill
By: Robert O'Neill
In-House Review - Apr 22 2014
Kuba (Mateusz Banasiuk), a champion swimmer, wants to have his cake and eat it too. He's in a committed relationship with Sylwia (Marta Nieradkiewicz), but he's carrying on an affair with Michal (Bartosz Gelner), a naïve, slightly younger fellow athl...
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Kuba (Mateusz Banasiuk), a champion swimmer, wants to have his cake and eat it too. He's in a committed relationship with Sylwia (Marta Nieradkiewicz), but he's carrying on an affair with Michal (Bartosz Gelner), a naïve, slightly younger fellow athlete who, initially, yearns for more affection than Kuba is willing to give in his state of sexual confusion.
As the two boys spend more time together, Michal finds the courage to come out to his family while Kuba starts falling more and more in love with his best gay buddy. Sadly, Sylwia and won't let Kuba go so easily. By trying to hold on to two loves at the same time, Kuba ensures as tragic ending for everyone involved.
Writer-director Tomasz Wasilewski takes his time setting up his story and characters. The film has a slow, observational quality - prizing setting and mood over dialog and incident. What the film lacks in action, though, it makes up for with compelling cinematography and gorgeously-rendered sex scenes. The director stages intimate moments - both straight and gay - that compliment and compare to each other, giving the audience a clear view of Kuba's bisexuality and showing how he treats his male and female lovers similarly. These scenes, of which there are many, are smart, sensual, erotic and always tasteful.
Review by levimike
By: levimike
Floating Skyscrapers gives almost a dystopian, unloved bent to gay life in Poland. If the film maker is really presenting an accurate view of life there, I don't see why every gay person doesn't flee from angry parents and bullying neighbors to the C...
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Floating Skyscrapers gives almost a dystopian, unloved bent to gay life in Poland. If the film maker is really presenting an accurate view of life there, I don't see why every gay person doesn't flee from angry parents and bullying neighbors to the Czech Republic or other safer environment.
Lead character Kuba(Polish actor Mateusz Banasiuk) puts himself between a rock and a hard place, juggling a suspicious girl friend and his mother against a young college student, Michal(Bartosz Gelner) he meets at an art exhibit who fancies him and wants to take things at a faster rate than Kuba is willing to or that his straight relations will put up with. Add scene interludes filled with annoying sound effects rather than music, and a severe beating to his boyfriend by carpark thugs near the finale(some reviewers surmise the boyfriend was actually murdered), and the only relief I got were the short scenes when Olympic swimming hopeful Kuba is expertly, powerfully, and quietly doing laps. These were almost enough to want to sit through the rest of the film. A much better film, one with a similar love story but less annoying as a whole is a film set in the Middle East, Out At Night.
Review by chromoman
By: chromoman
This is a technically well constructed film, with handsome actors who can act, and interesting cinematography. I do not know much about the state of Polish filmmaking these days, but this film does indeed seem to be well made. I also do not know mu...
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This is a technically well constructed film, with handsome actors who can act, and interesting cinematography. I do not know much about the state of Polish filmmaking these days, but this film does indeed seem to be well made. I also do not know much about the Polish zeitgeist these days, in regard to the sexual mores dealt with in this film. I would hate to assume that the attitudes displayed in this film are those of the prevailing culture there these days. Do we really need to revisit these type of films from the 1950s, depicting homosexuals as tortured souls who all must meet a sad, often bloody, end? I thought we had progressed beyond that.
Review by SeanyD
By: SeanyD
I watched three gay themed movies over the past week. All three end tragically i.e. another gay character dies. This one did not need to..it did not add to the plotline at all. It would be nice for once to see a LGBT movie that ended in life, not ...
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I watched three gay themed movies over the past week. All three end tragically i.e. another gay character dies. This one did not need to..it did not add to the plotline at all. It would be nice for once to see a LGBT movie that ended in life, not death.
Review by GNS
By: GNS
Very disappointing movie. Cinematography was excellent but the plot and ending very tired. An Olympian in training who smokes pot and cigarettes?
He ends up with the girl? Gay bashing?
Gay Sex in a back alley?? And you tell me that he trea...
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Very disappointing movie. Cinematography was excellent but the plot and ending very tired. An Olympian in training who smokes pot and cigarettes?
He ends up with the girl? Gay bashing?
Gay Sex in a back alley?? And you tell me that he treats his boyfriend and girlfriend the same.
We know the dysfunction in our community, we look to movies to escape and feel better.
I would recommend it as supporting the art in the hopes that movies that portray us in a great light and have a happy ending would prevail.
ONLY graphic sex was heterosexual.
Review by Amos LassenGay
By: Amos LassenGay
"Floating Skyscrapers" ("Plynace wiezowce")
Gay in Poland
Amos Lassen
We, in the West, know relatively little, if anything, about gay life in Poland and the country has no history of gay film? yet now we have two P...
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"Floating Skyscrapers" ("Plynace wiezowce")
Gay in Poland
Amos Lassen
We, in the West, know relatively little, if anything, about gay life in Poland and the country has no history of gay film? yet now we have two Polish gay-themed films-"Floating Skyscrapers" and "In the Name Of" (reviewed elsewhere on this site). "Skyscrapers" is basically the story of a young man who discovers his homosexuality while his girlfriend tries to hold on to him.
Kuba (Mateuaz Banasiuk) is a competitive swimmer who lives with his girlfriend, Sylwia (Marta Nieradkiewicz) and with his mother, Ewa (Katarzyna Herman). Sylwia does not know that Kuba has become interested in men and has been having sex with some while at the gym. Since Kuba is a passionate man, he thinks of these trysts as only physical. But then, he meets Michal (Bartosz Gelner), a college student, at the opening of an exhibition and the two men embark on a serious relationship and Kuba sees that there is a difference between sexual orientation or preference and sexual acts. This, quite naturally has an effect on his relationship with Sylwia.
Kuba lives to swim and has hopes of becoming a champion. He was stuck in a boring life until he met Michal and this changes his life forever especially his thoughts about himself and his future. His swimming suffers, as does his relationship with his girlfriend. She will not let him go even when he openly accepts that he is gay.
This is quite a beautiful study of gay identity in a country that is predominantly Catholic and the film is nuanced as it throbs with sexual repression and vitality at the same time. It is also quite a statement about attitudes toward LGBT culture.
Kuba's relationship with his mother have a complex relationship yet we are not told exactly how that works aside from her being domineering. We do know that she does approve of Sylwia being the important woman in his life. Kuba loves the pleasures of carnality-whether having sex with his girlfriend or participating in oral sex in the bathroom with guys at his gym. He is unable to tell the difference between physical desire and true love. However, it comes as a revelation when he meets student Michal (Bartosz Gelner) and he begins ignoring the women in his life in favor of his new friend and this makes his home life even more difficult.
This is a quiet movie and has little dialogue. We see a lot through gesture and most of what we hear is from Kuba's first person perspective. We become involved in the interactions and motivations of the characters and we see how love can bring about imbalances that people struggle to deal with even if it means having someone get hurt. Kuba, from the start knows that he likes men but rather than connect to homosexuality through emotions, he just looks for physical exploits. He realizes that he can have men in his life after meeting Michal and that anonymous sex is not a way to love. We remain aware that it is not easy to be gay in Poland and this is probably why, Kuba has such a hard time accepting himself. He senses that other people want to him in certain directions, irrespective of what he thinks about it.
The film moves slowly and quietly yet is sexy as it explores its characters. We have seen similar films before but not from Poland where there is great anti-gay pressure and what makes this interesting is this is a movie that was made from the inside. It looks at how similar people's reactions are to the situations they face no matter where they're from, even if the specific pressures change over time. It does make us think about LGBT issues in Poland, although it mainly reveals that things aren't so different as they might first appear
Director Tomasz Wasilewski couples the hypnotic employment of first-person perspective shots alongside short, sharp editing techniques to show Kuba's constant search for gratification, ultimately suggesting a perpetual inability to find true fulfillment. This cold, undeniably formal approach also reflects the repressive attitudes towards homosexuality in Poland. Wasilewski's use of rigid framing techniques and dramatic tension allows his film to represent the oppressive way of live and of traditional Polish (and Eastern European) values.
This film calls attention to a confident, polemic artist unafraid to push boundaries whilst simultaneously addressing topical social stigmas. The central cast's performances are all excellent and some of the film's imagery is truly spellbinding, particularly one scene when Kuba's mother stands in front of a wall covered with images of butterflies which we understand as a metaphor for her role in stifling her son's sexual awakening. There may be a bit of a problem with Kuba's being such a disagreeable protagonist but when the focus is on his sexual appetite and sense of gratification instead of emotions, we tend to be on his side.
I am sure that the graphic sex scenes will call attention to this film but there is something much deeper here. We are made aware of anti-gay aggression and sense that it just might be a frame away. Wasilewski manages to make the relationships on screen appear as natural as possible, easing out our sympathies for all three involved at different moments, even if both Kuba and Michal appear lustful rather than loving. This is a fresh and invigorating perspective on modern Polish culture which Wasilewski has masterfully orchestrated, elegantly framed.