All These Sleepless Nights

Beginning with a definition for the psychological term “reminiscence bump”—the tendency to attach greater meaning to college-age memories—the film introduces us to Krzysztof and Michal, two Warsaw art-school students drifting through their twenties. Krzysztof has just broken up with his long-term girlfriend; Michal suggests they live it up while they can, hitting all-night underground dance parties and diving headfirst into hedonism. Soon, a woman—Michal’s ex—comes between them, splintering the friendship but not stopping either from exploring who they are, and who they might want to become. Michal Marczak’s award-winning, free-form, year-in-the-life portrait is a snapshot not just of today’s Polish twentysomethings but an experiential tour of those years between adolescence and full-blown adulthood. Doing double-duty as cinematographer, the director weaves his camera in and out of late-night drunken revelries, early-morning raves and all-day philosophical hang-out sessions, with a few sexual encounters thrown in for good measure. This is youth, uncut, unfiltered and undeniably cinematic. —David Fear