‘Bread And Salt’: Cairo Review

Dir/scr: Damian Kocur. Poland. 2022. 99mins

Bread And Salt uses individual anguish to reflect on much bigger issues in Polish society and beyond. Inspired by true events, writer/director Damian Kocur’s subtle, slow-burn debut feature tells of a young pianist returning to a home town in which little seems to have changed and blind prejudices run deep. Non-professional actors add to the authentic feel of a film that builds like a volcano preparing to erupt. Further festival interest should continue.

 Even in the heat of the moment, Bread And Salt is marked by its subtle, soulful approach to events

Tymek (Tymoteusz Bies) is a student at the Warsaw Academy of Music. He returns home for the summer before heading to Germany for a two-year scholarship. Kocur sets the scene of provincial torpor. Tymek’s younger brother Jacek (played by Tymoteusz’s real life brother Jacek Bies) waits for him at a bus stop as three boys circle around on their bikes looking for something to spark their interest, or at least the offer of a cigarette.

Tymek falls in with the old gang and tries to motivate a brother who is also a talented pianist but has failed on his first attempt to get into university. There is little to do but hang out, drink beer, get stoned, try a few rap beats and let lazy days drift past. Kocur establishes a sense that Tymek may be part of the group but is now detaching from it. He is now the one who sits on the beach as others splash in the water and who never participates in any of the roughhousing. Nikola (Nikola Raczko) can sense a change. Even when they are alone, he never shows any interest in her – or, indeed, in any girl.

Kocur frames Tymek in a way that confirms his isolation. He also favours lingering close-ups in which we can watch Tymek as he observes others, taking everything in. Lead actor Tymoteusz Bies has a diffidence to him, a feeling of passivity that makes Tymek someone who could easily find himself caught up in events he cannot control. Bies is also an accomplished pianist, and the film is peppered with his performances of pieces by Chopin and Beethoven.

The one thing that has changed in the local estate is the addition of a kebab shop run by two refugees who have recently arrived in Poland. Tymek is more sympathetic than most to the owners, asking Youssef (Nadim Suleiman) if he has yet received the “bread and salt” of a traditional welcome to his country. Others treat the duo as easy targets. Frequent visits to the shop and cafe are invariably accompanied by jokes that aren’t funny, taunts, racist comments and homophobic asides.

Tymek tries to make his difference felt. There is a hint of a friendship or perhaps something more with Youssef. It is only a hint. however; Tymek mostly goes along with the crowd, disappearing when things turn heated. He doesn’t engage in any of the verbal or physical abuse, but he doesn’t call it out either. In one scene, Youssef is on a bus at night. Polish lads challenge him, taunt him and steal his backpack. Some passengers express their distate with a disapproving glance or an exasperated sight, but nobody intervenes. Tymek sits quietly, and only Nikola dares to reprimand the assailants. 

There is a sense throughout the film of growing unease. Youssef and his fellow refugee display the patience of saints but even saints will eventually retaliate to  relentless abuse. There is an echo of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing as a neighbourhood prepares for violence. Yet even in the heat of the moment, Bread And Salt is marked by its subtle, soulful approach to events. Nothing is explicit, and Damian Kocur trusts the audience to work some things out for themselves. It makes for a mature and thought-provoking first feature.