Director: Julia Kowalski
Year: 2026
Country: France/Poland
Alternate Titles: Que ma volonté soit faite
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
Trying to live her life, a woman in a remote, rural village ends up confronting the fears of her father head-on when she starts to succumb to the darker impulses in her life that lead her into being an outcast in the community, and when she gets blamed for more misgivings in the village, must face her destiny.
Review:
This was a fairly strong coming-of-age drama if light on the genre fare. The biggest aspect to be had here is the remarkably effective build-up of her life inside the village that runs rampant with superstition and paranoia. Beginning with the introduction to what type of community is present here, from the initial burning of their mother at the stake and thinking that she’s become like her and forcing the daughter in multiple attempts at repentance so that she can be seen as clean and virtuous, the complete forgoing of her attempts to leave and live a normal life, and the series of interactions with the new woman who arrives in town, this sets up the kind of oppressive, male-dominated society. Any extra effort she has at breaking out from this lifestyle is met with resistance and the demand to be more normal, marry into the community and obey without dissent, furthering everything even more when the kind of supposedly natural incidents in life are blamed on her and the type of generally dominating male influence over her life.
This ends up leading nicely into the more overt and obvious supernatural influence over the village as they start to showcase the type of mindset that would’ve led to burning at the stake originally in modern society. When the series of extreme disfigurements and chemical deformities takes place and the sense of paranoia present means that the earlier forms of hysteria run rampant again, the whole thing turns on her and how she’s going to get through everything to end up following her dreams outside the village, making everything into a fiery blowback to the structured order of society that’s been established. This allows her to come to understand life and what she needs to do to live her true self in fine form, bringing the entire thing into a prominent display of her feminine growth and fury coming full bore with the presentation here, and while little of this ends up making the film come together in the approach of a genuine genre effort with the coming-of-age mindset it takes, that might be the main drawback to be had here.
Overview: ****/5
More drama than anything, there’s quite a lot to like here regarding the drama and impact of her journey more than any actual genre content, which is where this one might slip for some viewers. Those who don’t mind those aspects, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the style or approach taken here will have the most to like here, while others expecting straight-up genre fare will want to heed caution.
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