Review: Wet Monday

Water Under the Bridge

Review of Wet Monday by Andy Stoeva

Justyna Mytnik’s Wet Monday is full of Easter eggs; and that does not mean there are plenty of clever references but is to be taken completely literally. Some of these Easter eggs scream. Some of them cry, some of them whisper. Some of them are giant and contain a painful memory inside their chocolate shell. Still being literal here – which is to say that Mytnik’s debut is truly a bizarre experience.

Teenager Klara (Julia Polaczek) is still recovering from an assault, which happened exactly a year ago – around the Easter holidays – her memory hazy from the trauma, her reactions to certain stimuli seemingly inexplicable to her friends and to her emotionally controlling sister Marta (Nel Kaczmarek). Klara’s mental state expands into a series of dreams in which she sees herself as a fantasy heroine on a quest to find some golden Easter eggs hidden in an underground world. These scenes overflow with symbolic imagery referring to Slavic mythology and Klara’s past. Another leading theme is a Polish tradition called Wet Monday – a folk celebration that involves being splashed with water the day after Easter.

Mytnik’s prominent use of it as a metaphor for mental turmoil and spiritual cleansing fits neatly into the narrative. However, sometimes the fantasy elements seem vague and expose the cracks in the otherwise strong premise. Mytnik had all the necessary devices to build a sweet and funny coming-of-age drama with splashes of unique symbolic imagery (which might be a little bit hard to decipher). The potential is all there, with some creative visual decisions and an outstanding score by Erki Pärnoja. However, instead of flowing smoothly, the story feels watered down and quickly sinks into mediocrity, oversaturated with illogical character behavior.

That is not to say that it isn’t an entertaining watch. Quite the contrary, especially if we choose not to take it too seriously. There are some laugh-out-loud moments. However, it is hard to treat a tale of abuse lightheartedly and it is almost impossible to tell which comedic devices are intentional. And isn’t one of the most important aspects of comedy to gently lead the viewers to the elements that are supposed to be perceived as amusing? Instead, we are left feeling like we are standing in a crowd of strangers at a party, unable to tell when we are supposed to laugh at their inside jokes.

Mytnik and co-writers Monika Dembinska and Rosanna Hall succeed in exploring the correlation between teenage sexual desire and repulsion from sexual activities caused by past trauma. Without making the plot too idea-heavy, they combine these themes with the struggles of being an outsider – especially through the role of Diana (Weronika Kozakowska), Klara’s kooky buddy whose unlikely friendship unlocks the main character’s self-expression.

Maybe if it was not for the ending, we wouldn’t have been left with such a bad taste in our mouth, but it resembles the last sip of warm beer. We find ourselves wishing Mytnik had ended on a stronger point of the story but instead she chooses to prolong the action a little too much and to conclude with a perplexing scene that dips into the fantastical realm without adding anything useful to the main concept. It adds however to its scattered nature – and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Wet Monday together again. But at the end of the day it is all water under the bridge – as long as we are having some fun while watching.