Fugue
Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Written by Gabriela Muskała
Starring Gabriela Muskała, Łukasz Simlat, and Małgorzata Buczkowska
Unrated
Runtime: 102 minutes
Opens in New York March 31, more screenings coming soon

by Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer

Finally! Finally, more than six years after Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s directorial debut, The Lure (aka Córki dancingu) was first screened in the U.S., and over four years after it was released in Poland and screened at Fantastic Fest, we are finally getting a wider release of Smoczyńska’s second feature, Fugue.

I was not fortunate enough to have seen Fugue when it made the festival rounds in 2018, so I have been awaiting news of any type of release, and I jumped at the chance to review it this time around. In a way, having to wait a bit longer to see it may have been a bit of a blessing. The Lure was such an experience that the added distance from Smoczyńska’s first feature means I’m having an easier time evaluating Fugue on its own merits. And make no mistake, it is certainly worth that detailed look. Gabriela Muskała (who also wrote the screenplay) stars as an amnesiac trying to navigate stepping back into a life she may once have led. What follows is a grounded story and characters paired with darkly fantastical stylistic and structural elements familiar to fans of Smoczyńska’s earlier film. The screenplay is impressively economical work from Muskała, in her first writing credit on a theatrical release, which races its way through setup to her character’s interactions with a husband and son that are strangers to her.

This uncomfortable, sometimes combative melodrama is beautifully shot by Jakub Kijowski, who has worked with Smoczyńska on all of her films so far, including The Lure, her segment in the 2019 omnibus The Field Guide to Evil, and Smoczyńska’s most recent (and first English-language) feature, 2022’s The Silent Twins. Watching Fugue, it’s easy to see why Kijowski has begun to make waves outside of Poland, serving as the cinematographer for Lorcan Finnegan’s recent film Nocebo. 

As for Fugue, it suffers as many genre films do of being hard to define and therefore hard to market. I’ve seen it labeled as a mystery or a thriller, but neither fit the film well. Muskała’s script is instead interested in examining the assumption that all women desire to be, or should desire to be, wives and mothers. Through her character’s memory loss she casts the role in an appropriately absurd light. After all, what would you do if suddenly presented with a family you do not remember, strangers claiming you as their daughter, their wife, their mother? As the film progresses we learn more of the characters’ past through the deft hands of Muskała and her co-star Łukasz Simlat, along a visual narrative skillfully crafted by Smoczyńska, Kijowski, and production designer/art director Jagna Dobesz.

I was most caught by the darkly surreal sequences interspersed throughout the film, creating impressively beautiful tableaus. A particularly affecting scene late in the film sees these haunting fantasies seemingly bleed through to the daylit reality of a trip to the beach. They perfectly compliment Muskała’s pointedly opaque characterization, providing the audience with brief glimpses of interiority.

With Fugue, Smoczyńska and her cast and crew are able to move away from the overtly fantastical elements in The Lure while retaining much of the atmosphere of a dark fairy story. Though the earlier film is much more in line with my interests, and the plot of Fugue is much less “fun,” the latter film is arguably more impressive in successfully balancing disparate elements to craft such an impactful film.