Young Polacas (2019)

The plot of this film is based on a piece of Jewish history which has not been often interpreted on screen – the mass immigration of the young Polish Jewish women to Brazil in the early 1900s, where they got caught up in the dismal circle of sex work. ‘Polacas’ is an archaic derogatory term for Polish women. Opulent and convincing costumes and interiors remind viewers of the best films on this dark topic, such as House of Tolerance by Bertrand Bonello and Street of Shame by Kenji Mizoguchi. The film has the nontypical narrative structure – we learn about the events through the story told by Mrs. Mira, the daughter of one of the sex workers, who tells a story of her childhood in an interview. It gives the film the style of a documentary and allows it to draw a visible connection with the modern times (by showing that nothing on this Earth passes without a trace) and to demonstrate the psychedelic nature of human memory, which puts grotesque twists on everything we have ever seen. It is impressive that Jovens Polacas is only the second narrative feature film by Alex Levy-Heller.