Wspomnienie lata

You can call "Memories of Summer" an intimate journey into the waning world of childhood seen through the eyes of 12-year-old Piotrek (Max Jastrzebski). The plot takes place in provincial Poland in the 1970s, and the atmosphere of those times is quite nicely recreated. But I think that the film has rather universal appeal because everyone has some memories related to that age, and those memories are usually nice. But it is complicated in Piotrek's case, because his father (Robert Wieckiewicz) is working abroad, while his mother (Urszula Grabowska) is having an affair with their neighbor. "Memories of summer is not perfect, but I think that it succeeds in conveying some of Marcel Proust's like nostalgia related to coming out of childhood and also convincingly shows the troubled early teenage years. And there is also another dimension to the plot. At times Piotrek seems to be more mature a human being than his mother, who is very self-centered and focused only on her own problems. I think that sometimes people marry and have children without fully realizing what it means and without being mature enough. So for me this modest film was interesting and credible.