Glorious Summer is a carefully composed slow-burn with an unmistakable anger coursing just under the surface. Set in an idyllic palace, Glorious Summer explores the inherent limits of a “perfect” existence. It follows three women through the day-to-day lives, doing what they’re told by a…surveillance system? AI program? A person lurking somewhere? The women are provided with everything they need for a luxurious life in exchange for giving up their ability to think for themselves. Seems like a stress-free way to live but, I mean, is idyllic ever used in a positive way to describe a movie’s setup?
The only catch is that the women are not allowed to cross the wall the separates the palace from the outside world. Tensions rise when the group begins to test the limits of the situation, finding ways to potentially escape. This includes devising a nonverbal way to communicate and learning to play dead. It’s clear early on that these women are already playing opossum with their lives by the initial agreement to go along with it.
As the allegory comes to the fore, the film becomes more provocative. The writing and directing team of Helena Ganjalyan (who also stars) and Bartosz Szpak grapples with the personal responsibilities that come with being human and being part of a society, even when that society could care less about you. It’s about asserting yourself, seeing the value in yourself and others, and the foolishness of allowing a system or government to dictate the terms of your life.
At times the film’s deliberate pace will test viewers. The runtime is only about 90 minutes, but Ganjalyan and Szpak want you to sit in the moment with these women, to feel a small modicum of what they’re going through. It’s a tactic that proves frustrating in the moment, but in hindsight feels like the right choice for the material.
The film’s minimal cast, which includes Magdalena Fejdasz-Hanczewska, Weronika Humaj, and Daniela Komedera, play off each other well. Each actress finds small ways to inject their characters with the personality that the overseeing program aims to mute. Given the narrow scope of the setting and script, there is a cleverness necessary for the performances to convey the larger points.
Extrapolating the story’s themes to the real-world makes me wish Ganjalyan and Szpak had opted for a blunter commentary. With women’s rights forever under attack all over the world, subtlety is overrated. Alas, Glorious Summer makes for a solid feature debut for Ganjalyan and Szpak that reminds me a bit of the high-concept/low-budget films by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. Hopefully Ganjalyan and Szpak’s partnership proves just as fruitful.
