MUG
A biting satire of prejudice and hypocrisy in rural Poland, this affecting drama follows a young man whose small town turns against him after a freak accident leaves him disfigured.
Despite being stuck working odd construction jobs and living with his combative, dysfunctional family, twentysomething metalhead Jacek (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) is a relatively happy guy. As the devout residents of his hometown give their attention to building the world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ, Jacek and his free-spirited girlfriend Dagmara (Malgorzata Gorol) exult in their misfit status, blasting Metallica and dreaming of escaping from the dead-end town. But everything changes when Jacek suffers a devastating accident at work and winds up receiving the nation’s first facial transplant. Sporting an unrecognizable new visage, Jacek becomes a national media sensation but a pariah at home, where Dagmara and even Jacek’s own family members eye him with suspicion and disgust. Inwardly unchanged but outwardly transformed, Jacek must come to terms with his new identity. Director Małgorzata Szumowska employs bleak humor to deliver pointed social commentary, mining the superstition and small-mindedness of the townspeople for moments of surrealism and dark comedy. Ultimately, MUG paints a despairing portrait of a narrow-minded community teetering on the verge of extremism.
CAST: Mateusz Kosciukiewicz, Malgorzata Gorol, Agnieszka Podsiadlik
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