For What it's Worth

Marcin Wrona’s soft-horror thinker Demon unfurls a competent and moody bit of filmmaking, which much like Robert Eggers’s Puritan period piece The Witch, becomes just as much about the dynamics of the society it’s set against as it is about a supernatural incursion. In this case a Polish man, about to be wed, gets possessed by a dybbuk (a demon of Jewish lore). The real eerie air swirling about, however, comes in the sad side note that Wrona, having had this, his third film, play the Toronto International Film Festival last year, committed suicide on the eve the film was to be shown at the Gdynia Film Festival, Poland’s annual film fest. There remains as much mystery in his tragic parting as there is in his protagonist’s slow consumption by the soul of another.

Much of the action takes place against bawdy wedding proceedings. There’s plenty of drinking and merriment, even as the spiritual affliction begins to break down the couple at the center of the celebration. Adapted from Piotr Rowicki’s 2008 playAdhere ce, the film begins on a somber, hopeful chord as Piotr (Itay Tiran), who like Jeremy Iron’s work-seeking Pol in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Moonlighting (1982), labors for a living wage in London, returns to Poland to marry the lovely Zaneta (a radiant Agnieszka Zulewska). The pairing is something of an arranged marriage. After the two are wed, they will be gifted Zaneta’s grandparents’ old farmhouse in the country, which is also the site of the wedding. Continue reading →