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One of Poland's most accomplished thespians, Andrzej Seweryn's talent was rewarded with Locarno's Best Actor prize for his role in this very unhinged film about a very unhinged family.
Polish surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński produced many powerful and disturbing works over the course of his career, but his home life was no less dramatic, with his reserved demeanour – along with that of his wife Zofia – tested by the destructive and charismatic presence of his son, the popular radio presenter Tomasz.
Dramatising nearly three decades in the life of this tumultuous household, from the 1970s to the 2010s, The Last Family is a heartbreaking, at times darkly comic but always arrestingly different kind of biopic. Aided by bravura performances, Jan P Matuszyński's first fictional feature masterfully depicts the conflict inside an ordinary Polish apartment block as the country outside transitions from a repressive surveillance state and into an uncertain future.
'The performances are, frankly, amazing, as is the photography of the drab housing project, an impressive updating of Kieslowski's Decalogue.' – Senses of Cinema