Film Review: The Peasants is an imaginative, gritty, tour-de-force

Kamila Urzedowska's Jagna, painted by Kateryna Ocheredko, in The Peasants

• The Peasants
• ★★★★☆
• Cinema release

Adapted from the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Polish author Wladyslaw Reymont, The Peasants (16s) is the latest film from DK and Hugh Welchman, whose most recent offering was the superb Loving Vincent (2017).

Set in the rural Polish village of Lipce at the end of the 19th century, the story revolves around Jagna (Kamila Urzedowska), whose beauty is both a blessing and a curse: in love with the lowly labourer Antek (Robert Gulaczyk), the idealistic Jagna finds herself pursued by the widower Boryna (Miroslaw Baka), who isn’t just the wealthiest farmer in the district, but Antek’s father-in-law.

What follows is a romantic tragedy deeply rooted in Lipce’s ‘holy soil’: here love is very much a transactional affair, in which Jagna’s ‘bride price’ is six acres, although the price she pays for inheriting the land is considerably higher and devastatingly personal.

A gripping narrative in terms of its story, The Peasants is also a visual delight, delivered in an impressionistic style the Welchmans described as hand-painted animation, in which each frame of the original film is painted over by a small army of animators.

Where Loving Vincent was conceived in the style of Vincent van Gogh, The Peasants alludes to a number of Young Poland artists, among them Jozef Chelmonski and Ferdynand Ruszczyc. 

It’s a rare blend of imaginative style and gritty substance. The Peasants is a tour-de-force.