Holy Field Holy War

In The End of the world begins with one lie (FID 2011), Lech Kowalski showed us the effects of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, using images from the Internet and deconstructing Robert Flaherty’s film Louisiana Story. This time, the art of cinema is again used for the sake of denunciation, but Kowalski explores a new territory: the seemingly quiet Polish countryside, a choice land for shale gas drilling. The director takes his time to meet farmers and investigate, asking questions and recording their testimony and anger. What about pollution? Some say it is already happening, “we’ve learned it at our expense”: liquid manure, chemical waste. The landscapes of this abused land are already pregnant with some invisible threat. Is it an uneven fight? A losing battle? Filled with lies? Never mind, “camera war” founder Kowalski takes arms, on the side of the underdog. He scrutinizes the scenery and beholds the endless fields in long pan shots, lingering on a gesture or a patch of land, and observing it carefully as if it was all going to disappear because of what is rumbling under the landscape. It is also a melancholic film, a kind of declaration of love to this land before it collapses into oblivion.