NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN (2020)
Directed by Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert
When a mysterious stranger (Alec Utgoff) arrives in a gated community on the outskirts of a large city, he is welcomed by the wealthy residents who embrace his talents as a masseur. Though his hands provide healing, his eyes seem to penetrate their very souls, lifting a disquiet in each of their lives.
One grey, foggy morning in a large, Eastern European city, a mysterious person appears – a man carrying a bed. The visitor uses magical, hypnotic techniques to get a residence permit and starts working as a masseur in a suburban housing estate.
The bland, gated community, built for the rich in the middle of what used to be a cabbage field, is walled off from the ‘worse’ world around it.
Somewhere in the distance loom the skyscrapers and cranes of a city aspiring to become an international hub, the East constantly in pursuit of the West. The identical houses are inhabited by an array of well-to-do representatives of the upper class to which we all
constantly aspire. They seem to feel an inner sadness, a longing. Perhaps it is for the
winter, which is no longer present in this eastern country. Unlike them, their children don’t build snowmen anymore. But maybe their emptiness runs deeper?
The masseur, an attractive man from the authentic, exotic East enters their lives. He has
a gift. His hands heal, his eyes penetrate the souls of the lonely women. To them, his
Russian accent sounds like the song of the past, a peaceful melody of their childhood, when the world was a safer place.
Zhenia, for this is his name, changes their lives.
Original Language: Polish, Russian, French, Vietnamese (English subtitles available)
Bold, beautiful and mesmeric, NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN is the acclaimed new film from Małgorzata Szumowska and her longtime collaborator Michał Englert.
