A GRAIN OF TRUTH – St. Louis Jewish Film Festival Review

Wednesday, June 7, at 7 PM, Plaza Frontenac Cinema

Poland; in English and Polish with English subtitles; 112 minutes

In the chilling crime thriller A GRAIN OF TRUTH, a hard-nosed prosecutor investigates a murder with bizarre and mysterious trappings, and finds himself immersed in Poland’s antisemitic past, a past that keeps resurfacing despite the modern world.

Murder, mystery and myth combine in the masterful and gripping A GRAIN OF TRUTH, director Borys Lankosz’s twisty police procedural thriller, adapted from the second novel in Zygmunt Miloszewshi’s fiction trilogy of the same name. The director and author co-wrote the screenplay, which crackles with suspense and eerie terror.

When the naked body of Ela Budnick is found next to a building that was once a synagogue, along with the probable murder weapon – a knife used in Jewish ritual – alarm spreads in the tiny Polish village. The investigation is assigned to Teodor Szacki (Robert Więckiewicz), a newcomer from the big city of Warsaw, rather than the local lead investigator Basia Sobieraj (Magdalena Walach), who was a close friend of the deceased.

Szacki’s title is prosecutor but his role is that of a police detective in this taut thriller. Basia and Leon Wilczur (Jerzy Trela), a grizzled old investigator with a dry sense of humor, are both assigned to assist Szacki, to facilitate working with the villagers, who are leery of outsiders. People in the little village are alarmed by the strange circumstances of the murder and are soon gripped with superstition and fear.

Szacki goes about his work in a no-nonsense manner, not distracted by the bizarre details or old antisemitic myths. There is no shortage of potential suspects, including the dead woman’s husband Grzegorz Budnik (Krzysztof Pieczyński) and a wealth man despised by most of the town, Jerzy Szyller (Andrzej Zieliński). When a second body is discovered, also with signs of ritual killing, panic seems to fill the whole village.

Lankosz shows a masterful touch in crafting this gripping suspense film. On the surface, it appears to be a police procedural but what A GRAIN OF TRUTH is really about is the persistence of these evil myths in the memory of people in modern Poland.

The crime thriller sets its mood by the opening credits, shown over an animated sequence of a bloody, graphic action images, like something you expect for a Russian supernatural action thriller in the style of Timur Bekmambetov’s NIGHT WATCH. But instead of vampires and werewolves, what is depicted are the scary, antisemitic folk tales Poles used tell their children about the Jewish minority that lived among them. The sequence gives audiences a taste of how disturbing these myths are, and sets up the film’s exploration of the persistence of antisemitism in modern Poland.

Time and again, villagers bring up these antisemitic folks tales to the investigator, and Szacki coolly reminds them “those are just stories parents used to tell their children to frighten then into behaving.” The villagers each agree but then, repeatedly, they add “but there is always a grain of truth in old myths.” It is as chilling as the horrific murders.

Whether the trappings of ritual mean anything or are just a red herring the killer is using is among the puzzles Szacki must pull apart. One thing he discovers, thanks to a man people hire to research their family trees, is that there are plenty of secrets. “They all want to find out if they are related to nobility,” archivist says dryly. What no one wants to find, he tells Szacki, is what he often uncovers, a Jewish branch in the family.

Actor Robert Więckiewicz is excellent as the tough guy Szacki. Magdalena Walach as Basia Sobieraj adds a human side, mourning her friend while maintaining professionalism in the investigation. As Leon Wilczur, Jerzy Trela adds dry commentary and some background on the village’s many secrets and complex relationships. Zohar Strauss plays a modern rabbi who fills in some information on the folk tales and details of Jewish traditions and rituals for the non-Jewish Szacki and the audience. Other characters add their distinct touches to the complex mystery.

Along with the taut suspense, there is a little streak of dark humor in this crime thriller. When the first murder is connected with an antique knife used traditionally in Kosher butchering, some creepy types surface almost immediately. Szacki does some online research into the obscure murder weapon, which brings him in contact with a guy who hosts a website on exotic knives and swords. The obsessive collector, who considers himself an expert on blades, worms his way in and pesters Szacki for the knife found near the body. His creepy yet comic lust to obtain the murderer weapon is an example of the dark horror-movie humor sprinkled throughout the film.

Of course, there is nothing funny about the prejudice just below the surface nor the relentless Szacki as he tries to figure out the motive and identity of the killer. The story twists and turns, revealing secrets, buried resentments and some distasteful history of Poland before it wraps up the mystery in a satisfying end.

This thriller will grab the audience from the start, both with the chilling murder mystery and with the villagers chilling willingness to revert to horrifying old beliefs. Wrapped in its crime thriller cloak, the film is an intriguing and horrifying look at the persistence of sinister myths, and how they can lurk just beneath the surface.