Hatred (2016)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely the worst movie.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

BBC documentary "The war of the century" depicts UPA as "good guys" who fight "bad guys", Hitler and Stalin, Russians and Germans. Such nonsense. From the historical perspective the film is one-sided. It doesn't show response of the Polish nationalists (Armiya Krayova) to those massacres. It was on the lesser scale but equally brutal. Overall the film was made pretty good (just a little bit too much brutality, I think) and introduces ignorant western viewers to the real horrors of war.

After watching this painfully long movie, I sat several minutes in disbelief. Such an important topic! Such a wasted opportunity! The movie concentrated on whitewashing Poles and tried to show them as martyrs - there was nonspace for doubt, free thinking, a bit of reflection. The complicated history of Western Ukraine is shown without any respect to its complexity. The movie forgets about centuries of Polish occupation of the land, broken promises, past conflicts. I was ao incredibly dissatisfied! It looked like the director tried to shock the audience with violence to cover up the lacking in political and sociological analysis. Many fragments - like the opening wedding sequence - were given way too much screen time, with others - political movements, for example - were just brushed on. Whole movie seemed quite off balance. And the pseudo- poetic, metaphorical ending was just too much. It is a shame that the writing and directing was so weak. It is also disappointing as this director is very capable- see Roza for example. I fear political influence of the many sponsors. There are few good performances, mostly from secondary characters. The main actress is a bit lifeless, she's only ok in opening sequence, but it might be the director 's vision - her defence mechanism to what's happening around her. Severely disappointed- don't waste your time. Read some smart essays about Volhynia online instead.

The 2017 Edinburgh International Film Festival showed 'Wołyń' under the title 'Volhynia'. The film's official English title, however, is 'Hatred'.While Europe was tearing itself apart during the Second World War, another conflict, between Poles and Ukrainians, was going on in eastern Europe as militant Ukrainian organisations sought to expel all non-Ukrainians (chiefly Poles, but Jews as well) from the territory of a future Ukrainian state. This film centres on the impact of the violence on an ethnically-mixed village of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews, with the central character being Zosia, the prettiest (and blondest) girl in the village, who is in love with Petro, the prettiest (and blondest) *boy* in the village. But her father marries her off instead to Maciej, the village's much-older alderman. As awful as this is for Zosia, these domestic concerns pale into insignificance as the inter-ethnic violence is unleashed...... and unleashed it certainly is. When the film's interminable opening wedding scene ended I was glad because it meant the women finally stopped singing; but then I got bored with the violence - there are only so many times you can see someone having their spine pulled out before you stop paying attention. And that is a shame, because this is, after all, based on real events and real suffering. Director/writer Wojciech Smarzowski (adapting short stories by Stanisław Srokowski) would have done better to produce a shorter film (2½ hours is too long), keeping the character development and focussing on just one or two violent incidents - that, I feel, would have had more impact (and not resulted in this particular viewer, on seeing someone pulled in half between two horses in yet another gory scenario, dispassionately thinking "surely his arms would pop out first?")I found it difficult to keep up with who was Polish and who was Ukrainian - although the sub-titles are helpfully laballed 'Pol' and 'Ukr' - as so many of the characters speak in both languages anyway. I did appreciate that the film made the point that Poles were not only victims: they committed acts of violence also. And I liked the character bits. So I would recommend watching it once, but I doubt that I will watch it again.

Motion pictures set within time and place of a great historical value seems to be the current trend for Polish film makers. Every "patriotic" movie receives a tremendous promotion before it even hits the box office. It was pretty much the same case with "Wołyń". The director seems to be working with the same choice of actors which is a good thing as they can definitely deliver. The performance of the cast makes this sad historical drama gripping. The story which was based on the real (extremely controversial) events is also the key factor of a very positive reception among the viewers. Being aware of the fact that the subject of the story requires careful handling, Smarzowski included several scenes which absolutely don't fit the whole movie causing a bit of a confusion. However, the scenes save the movie from potential political accusations.