Heartland: All for My Mother

This year’s Heartland Film Festival will be a combination of drive-in and virtual screenings. For a complete schedule and to buy tickets, click here.

"All for My Mother" is a searing Polish drama whose story feels like it could easily take place in the U.S., or anywhere. It's about a teen girl, Ola, who has bounced around between orphanages and has finally caused enough trouble to be sent to a girls' juvenile reform school. There experiences a downward spiral of isolation and abuse that would break most souls.

Played by Zofia Domalik, Ola is at once full of self-loathing but also untapped reserves of resolve. We feel pity for her, then something like resentment, followed by empathy and even, astonishingly, admiration.

Writer/director Malgorzata Imielska includes many of the tropes we would expect from this sort of film.

There is the generally uncaring staff, typified by a principal (Halina Rasiakowna) who constantly looks the other way and seems to be counting the hours till retirement. They pooh-pooh and tut-tut and never really solve anything. Maybe they cared once, but they've seen so many sad cases their empathy receptors closed down.

There is the tough girl, Agnes (Maria Sobocinska), who rules the roost when no adults are around and soon becomes the main antagonist to Ola. And the timid, sensitive one, Mania (Malwina Laska), who everyone likes but not enough to take steps to protect her from the vagaries of this existence.

The gym teacher, Tomasz (Dobromi Dymecki), takes an interest in Ola due to her abilities at long-distance running. They train constantly together -- drawing the teasing and less-funny suggestions of the other girls -- and he even says she has a shot at making the Olympic team.

Maybe it's true, or maybe it's something he just says to give her hope.

Things go on. Ola has been fighting an uphill battle to get any information about her mother's whereabouts or situation. Other than a brief home movie of her as a child she has on a busted camcorder, Ola has no information about her mom or why she was given up. In her mind, she has built it up that her mother is desperately trying to find her.

She insists on accompanying a couple dropping off their last foster child because they live near her hometown. They're ready to be done with taking in runaways, but surprisingly agree to the arrangement for a month. Ola takes every opportunity to sneak away from their farm into town to continue her sleuthing for her mother.

The couple ask to be addressed as Uncle and Auntie (Adam Cywka and Jowita Budnik), and for a time it seems like Ola could finally have found some tranquility. She can run in the fallow fields and there's even a hutch of rabbits she can feed lettuce to.

Of course, we know something bad is going to happen, and the film's main failing is that the audience knows what's coming long before it does. These scenes still are hard to watch nonetheless.

"All for My Mother" is the sort of movie that breaks your heart and then lifts it up. It shows how evil and capricious the world can be, but also that there are nuggets of hope and self-reliance amid all the muck.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxRtAmbI0_k[/embed]