Swinki (2009) Reviews

• Good, but not excellent

  hanagomolakova2009-10-04

  The topic of child prostitution is one of the hardest to grasp on the camera and my admiration goes to every director who has taken a shot at the topic so far. Swinki is a surprising portrayal of the industry and has a take on the subject which, unlike in other movies, shows the kids voluntarily slip in the industry for money and keep coming back for more before they discover it might be too late to leave. The film portrays this development accordingly, with the young actors presenting just the right amount of professionalism and amateurism needed for their characters to be believable. The plot is easy to follow with several surprising and shocking moments that let you peak in how far things can go. However, having said all that, I felt a topic such as this has much more potential to study in more depth than those Glinski shows on screen. When compared to Lilja-4ever, a film which is one of those films that you will never forget and one of the best ones I've seen on the subject, Swinki is a only a nicely told tale with a good structure that is somehow afraid to dig deeper and show more layers to this horrible issue happening in our world every single day.

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• Hard and effective

  Nagi42009-09-09

  Hard and effective. Also one of the strong films in KVIFF this year. A really strong tale about boy prostitutes on the former border of Poland and Germany. I thought the main actor did a superb job and the directing was accurate and well done. I almost started to hate the stupidity of the young main actress, so the film really got me and I was following it strongly. The film brings something new to the old "Prostitute plot" by the destruction of some of the characters. There is a great "James Dean -Giant" touch in the story. Success corrupts and changes man. I can really recommend this eastern European gem. The only big weakness in it is the script that at some point stops going on. The film starts to go over and over the same themes and doesn't move forward. That's why it stays as a eight and not a nine.

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• I did not feel the transformation

  Horst_In_Translation2017-02-08

  "Swinki" or "Goodbye Tomek" or "Ich, Tomek" or "Piggies" is a Polish/German co-production from 2009, so two more years and this one will have its 10th anniversary. It was written and directed by Robert Glinski and it is probably his second most famous work. The film runs for slightly over 1.5 hours and it is all about 14-year-old Tomek played by Filip Garbacz. The character is a good student, but he suffers from the bad area of Poland that he grows up in. Crime is just around the corner and it's the heavier stuff. He manages to blend it all out pretty nicely until he falls in love with a girl named Marta who ends up using the hopeless Tomek for her own financial improvement. Things become worse when a competitor for Marta's affection emerges and it drives Tomek to do worse and worse things the longer the film goes on. I personally must say I liked the introduction and the developments early on. Garbacz gives a solid performance as well as Anna Kulej (Marta) and the rest of the cast is at least decent too, even if nobody stands out really But honestly, the moment when the title character really seems to have lost her despite doing awful things is when I thought Tomek would rather drown in his own mystery and loneliness instead of going the path he actually does in the movie, namely sinking deeper into the abyss of child prostitution. I still can make an argument here for this plot development because who knows how young teenagers in love function. Cannot argue with reason here. But when he eventually speaks out to become the pimp himself and then even becomes a murderer is when the film totally lost me. I did absolutely not feel authentic in terms of how the character was described and written in the entire half of the movie. Had the film stayed on the level it was during the first 45-60 minutes, my rating would have been a 6 out of 10, but for me personally the directions the plot was taking in the last third of the film did not work out at all. Quite a pity as there was clearly potential for more. Glinski sacrificed realism and authenticity here for the attempt to become as shocking as possible. It did not get me on the edge of my seat though, but got me to shake my head on more than one occasion. Watch something else instead.

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• Unacceptably low acting and shocking dialogs, amateurish

  taner862010-06-04

  The subject dealt with in the movie is no doubt, a difficult one.. It should not be touched by directors of the lower sort or students as it may be the case here. I have a problem to establish which of the 2 Polish movies is worse? "Zielone lata" or "Swinki". The previous is far older movie so it is forgiven. The latter one is unforgivably low quality... the acting is beyond any comments,alas except perhaps for Tomek but also only "just". The dialogs are clumsy, unnatural, most of the time unnecessary and dummy. Of course there is a room in them for vulgarity as usually is the case in most Polish movies searching for a cheap stunt. Poles love talking and because talk is cheap...they do a lot of it in movies. Unintelligently executed work. Not much is happening for the duration of 3/4 of the movie... then the finale is somewhat acceptable.. Not the conversations of course... they will be no good to the very end. I've made subs for this movie and that was a real torture for me. This type of social issues, as i mentioned already - should never be allowed to be handled by an amateur crew. Waste of time to watch...If you are into these type of society problems - go for the British "The war zone" Not that is spectacular but at least the acting is not that bad...Boy, o boy... those Poles :-)

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