movie review: Four Nights with Anna

If a man stands and watches as a crime is committed, and chooses not to intervene, is he somehow culpable? What is the difference between someone who sins and someone who wants desperately to, but refrains out of fear? Where is the line between perverse fascination and romantic love?

These are just a few of the questions that arise when watching Four Nights with Anna, the first picture in over 15 years from Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski. The script, co-written by Skolimowski and first-timer Eva Piaskowska, is a gripping character study of Leon, a timid man approaching middle age who has voyeuristic tendencies (to put it mildly). An intriguing story in its own right, Leon’s tale is made all the more provocative by the unconventional structure of Skolimowski’s narrative, which complicates interpretation of the film in wonderful ways.

Leon lives with his ailing grandmother in a small community in the Polish countryside where the sky is always overcast. He works at a crematorium. At night he watches Anna, a nurse and the object of his longings, through her window. From what little we learn, she seems entirely normal and unremarkable. She is unaware of Leon’s existence though she lives in a house separated from his by only a small, muddy field. The story is put in motion when Leon devises a scheme to drug her so that he may sneak through a window into her room at night.

As if it wasn’t discomforting enough to watch him methodically execute this plan, the film cuts periodically to scenes in which Leon is being interrogated on charges of rape. Are they flashbacks or flash-forwards? It’s intentionally ambiguous. In any case, we’re set up for the worst. The camera assumes Leon’s point of view while he peeps, and it appears, initially, that this may just be a sick, exploitative fantasy – albeit, a gorgeous looking one. Throughout Four Nights with Anna, the low key lighting is perfectly ominous, the camerawork is smooth and efficient, and Skolimowski’s direction impresses in a manner that’s understated and unobtrusive.

Once Leon steps inside Anna’s room, however, things get a good deal more interesting, and it becomes clear that this craftsmanship has not all gone to waste. Leon stops short of molestation. So what does he do in there? He tiptoes around and examines her things. He covers her with a blanket; he mends her shirt with a needle and thread. Skolimowski renders Anna’s room a treasure chest when, in actuality, it’s quite cluttered and mundane. “Just like you wanted, Grandma,” Leon says later. “I’m seeing a woman.”

Leon is played by Artur Steranko, who performs the bedroom scenes with just the right mix of reverence and dread, shyness and desperation, trepidation and anticipation. His performance is vastly creepy and punctuated by moments of sweetness. In many ways, Leon is somewhat average. He is not particularly smart or slow. He fails in his attempts to be furtive (tumbling out of her window into the mud, and so on). He is disturbed, certainly, but he does not appear to be a complete psychopath – which, in turn, makes him that much scarier, his behavior that much more inexplicable. It should be noted that the film’s excellent score, composed by Michal Lorenc, also contributes greatly to the unnerving vibe and overall sense of suspense; though, naturally, a film about trespassing engenders a great deal of suspense.

The aforementioned flashback/forward device helps make Four Nights with Anna successful because it forces the viewer to constantly reevaluate what’s come before, and from multiple angles. Likewise, as the film progresses, earlier flashbacks and the assumptions that came with them require reconsideration. Whatever way you want to look at it, it’s Leon that’s being examined and reexamined, and this sentiment is echoed in the film’s interrogation and courtroom scenes. Skolimowski dares the audience to judge him again and again, and each time he reveals another twist. He never portrays Leon as a hero – it would be reckless, even dangerous, to condone such behavior, and with that in mind, Leon does pay for his misdeeds. But neither does he demonize him. Rather, Leon is shown as a human, flawed, capable of both good and bad, and ultimately his comeuppance is wrought not with retribution but with pathos.