Out of Fantastic Fest, Agata Trzebuchowska’s Sick breaks thorns into the skin with its coming-of-age tale about shame and blossoming sexuality. The writer/director unwittingly pulls stylistic threads from Ingmar Bergman’s poetically brutal The Virgin Spring, as well as the weirdness of Todd Haynes’ Poison, and weaves them together into a dangerously alluring and thought provoking debut feature. While not an explicitly queer film, the uncomfortable sensation of being alien in one’s own body surely leaps beyond hetereonormative boundaries. Trzebuchowska mines universal themes with a deeply personal, freshly sharpened bone. In doing so, Sick taps into the darkest parts of the teenage brain.
Maks (Konrad Kąkol) and his older sister Emma (Katarzyna Łubik) head to the secluded home of their very ill grandmother (Monika Niemczyk), whose live-in nurse left without notice. The nearby village gives them little to do in the sweltering heat, and the sun casts a dream-like aesthetic over the house and the surrounding woods. Nothing seems real. But the growing sexual urges are certainly real. With every rise in temperature, Maks experiences increasingly lust for his sister, who pushes the envelope of Maks’ limits, often refusing to help for their grandmother or to clean up after meals. Their relationship begins innocuous enough and much like most siblings’ relationships, but once those carnal thoughts take root, there’s no killing the inevitable weeds that seek to strangle them both.
When the film takes a hard left turn, a nightmarish Eden sprouts around Emma and Maks. Their own burgeoning feelings contrast the physical changes squirming inside their grandmother; both are monstrous for very different reasons. Trzebuchowska brings along long-time collaborator Maciek Edelman as cinematographer, and together, they give the story a raw, grounded quality to the visual moments, such as uninterrupted one shots, that string the emotional points into an unbreakable chain. As Emma and Maks fall further into orbit, their world becomes fraught with unhibited primal instincts and a confrontation with the most taboo of desires.
Sick deliberately forces the audience to question morality, untamed sexuality, and human deception. Kąkol and Łubik place their performances in the earth, honestly portraying complicated sibling dynamics with authentic humanity. Trzebuchowska winds up the actors with complex emotional and physical triggers to evoke and propel Emma and Maks careening down an ill-fated highway. Niemczyk’s turn as the ailing elder plays on the frightening reality of aging for women and how it completely shifts your perspective on life.
Agata Trzebuchowska doesn’t hold back when it comes to the explosive finale. Sick appropriately burns slowly until only ash remains, and all the characters can do is spit and use the ash concoction as body paint. The title’s double entrendre makes good on its promise by the time the last frame hits. When the credits roll, the viewer will be wondering exactly what they just witnessed.
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