Good Night, Princesses
VHS home movies intertwine to tell the story of a girl growing up in a small Polish village at the turn of system and century. Born to a mother who rejoices and a father who wanted a son, she learns early that gender decides one’s value. In her imagination, TV icons and saints mingle surrealistically. As a brother and sister arrive, the rules become clear: boys are free to do as they please, while girls must be beautiful and good, hoping for earthly or heavenly crowns.
Her father’s harshness shapes the family, his authority absolute. Branded "rather ugly", she silently abandons both religious and secular promises of glory. Her mother, a master of suffering, offers a powerful yet destructive model of womanhood, teaching her daughter to endure rather than to change. The girl feels split between admiration, pity and an overwhelming desire to escape.
When communism collapses and the 1990s flood Poland with consumerism, her father fails to adapt to the new capitalism. As their emotional bond finally starts to grow – they even share cigarettes – illness strikes. He dies of cancer, though the daughter suspects capitalism finished what the cigarettes began. By the year 2000 she is an adult, convinced the world has ended in more than one sense. To move forward, she must revisit the child she once was and confront the stories written into her by family, church, television and politics.
Her father’s harshness shapes the family, his authority absolute. Branded "rather ugly", she silently abandons both religious and secular promises of glory. Her mother, a master of suffering, offers a powerful yet destructive model of womanhood, teaching her daughter to endure rather than to change. The girl feels split between admiration, pity and an overwhelming desire to escape.
When communism collapses and the 1990s flood Poland with consumerism, her father fails to adapt to the new capitalism. As their emotional bond finally starts to grow – they even share cigarettes – illness strikes. He dies of cancer, though the daughter suspects capitalism finished what the cigarettes began. By the year 2000 she is an adult, convinced the world has ended in more than one sense. To move forward, she must revisit the child she once was and confront the stories written into her by family, church, television and politics.