It's not a movie with many spoken lines in it. After all the two main characters hardly speak the same language. The movie allows its images to mostly tell the entire story. I sort of always like this, since after all that's also how movies were intended to be in the first place. The great camera-work and compositions of course help with this. It also makes the movie a slow going one but this works beautiful and effective for the movie its story and storytelling. Still, because the movie is rather short, it tends to rush things a little, especially toward the end. It's also the reason why the movie ends sort of on a false note.This movie is a real character movie. Almost the entire movie focuses purely on just the two main characters. The characters don't explain anything to each other about how and what. They just accept things as they are and don't look back, even though the both of them, as implied, had issues in the past. They are definitely not at love at first but they also most certainly don't hate each other. They slowly and steadily grow- and open up toward each other and also learn from each other, in many different ways. It doesn't make this movie 'just' another unusual love-story but something that goes deeper and therefor also gets more effectively shown on the screen.The movie gives a good portrayal of the farm life and the empty flat real peaceful nature. I think it's a real missed opportunity from Dutch film-makers to not shoot more movies there. It's cheap to make, also since you don't have to close down any roads or shops or stuff like that and it's of course beautiful looking, which really gives the movie a lot of atmosphere without having to manipulate or set up anything. And abroad, people always seem to like these type of movies and these movies, with this kind of atmosphere, have a fair chance at the international market and festivals. After all, this movie even received a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign film.I never thought I would hear an Ede Staal song in a Dutch, or just any movie. Ede Staal and his music are unmistakably connected to the entire province of Groningen. His songs are often about the province and they perfectly capture the life, feeling and atmosphere of the province. So, one of his most famous songs 't Hogelaand' totally fits within the movie, captures its atmosphere and what it tries to tell.Jaap Spijkers is a good actor, although I admit that he is a better actor now then he used to be 10 years ago, at the time of this movie. Or perhaps it's just that he isn't really the sort of actor for the leading type of roles. Same goes for Monic Hendrickx by the way, who at the time still was a rookie in the movie business. He did a fairly good job with his accent, although people who are actually not from Groningen but play a Groninger character always tend to make the accent sound way too thick.The movie is about some relevant issues, such as Polish woman being forced to work in the prostitution in Western countries, the hard financial situation and time for Dutch farmers and the slinking population, amount farms and shops in the rural areas.The movie is currently getting an Australian treatment as well, named "Unfinished Sky", again with Monic Hendrickx in the same role. The story will probably work the same but will the atmosphere as well? Doubtful, which is a negative thing, since it mostly was the atmosphere that carried the movie and almost entirely told the movie its story and emotions.A really great and also certainly unique and a one of a kind movie. The Australian version won't change that.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I'm from the countryside of Groningen, where this magnificent film is shot. If you live here, you know there is some kind of strange and pleasant atmosphere floating on it's land..... The Algerian director Traïda showed that feeling spotless. The images of the endlessly flat open land and the little forests growing in it are perfect, the light and sky are done heavenly and very warm, something I miss in a lot of Dutch films. (this is personally by far the best Dutch flick ever) The story is about a typical lonely Groninger farmer living his life harvesting potatoes and mourning over the loss he has lived. Then all of the sudden a pretty Polish girl falls literally in his life after escaping from her pimp boss. The story is about the love that develops between the two and the changes they both have to go through to let it fit. I won't spoil it for you, just watch this amazing film and be open for the truly amazing beauty of the Groninger land and it's story.Extremely recommendable for everyone around the world. A+ 10/10

Anna, an abused Polish immigrant forced to work as a prostitute, is rescued by Henk, a taciturn and reclusive farmer. Gradually, as Anna recovers, Henk slowly wins her trust.The film is a subtle, tender love story. Anna, in turn, affects Henk's life bringing a sense of vitality (she sings in the empty house) which brings the emotionally repressed farmer out of his shell. Clearly, this is a man with much love to give but who has retreated himself for one reason or another.It's a very slow paced film, perhaps too much so, but then it is more a character study of two very different, but equally lonely people falling in love.My major criticsim of the film is its ending. Anna's 'employers' return and are brutally murdered; I thought this was quite well done resolving the thriller element of the plot quite effectively. However, Anna & Henk, finally consummate their love immediately after the murders. This seemed out of place and harmony with the rest of the film. It might have been better if the lovers had consummated their passion first before the return of the dreaded pimps, thus adding to the tension of whether their relationship would survive.An interesting film and I think one of the Dutch reviewers was a little harsh on his nation's recent film output. 'Antonia's Line' and 'Character' are very distinctive films; they may not be huge 'hits' or garner many plaudits, but they are original. In a cinematic world which is highly derivative, that is no such bad thing.

I was thrown off balance during The Polish Bride, when Anna's "employers" return to the farm and Henk kills one with a shotgun. Even though they had worked him over and killed his dog on their previous visit, the sudden violence was a shock and seemed too improbable. It wasn't just that Henk had not involved the police but that he when he fired it wasn't quite self-defense. He didn't try to drive the men away by threatening them and didn't wait for them to fire first or even point a gun at him. He just came right out and blew the man away, apparently having made up his mind there was no other way to deal with these men. Apparently they wanted Anna, a Polish immigrant, to work as a prostitute, but even this is little explained, and one of them was the man who had raped Anna, but again, the movie takes little pains to let us know this is the same man. So, it's quite a twist to suddenly be watching a crime movie. Up to this point it's been a characteristically European drama in which the last thing you expect is this kind of violence. A young man from Holland in the audience commented that it's not at all unusual for the rural Dutch to deal with problems in such a way, without involving the police, whom, he said, are mostly useless in any event, if only because such crimes are so rare.After Anna bludgeons the second man, the excruciatingly slow courtship between them suddenly bursts into passion, and they have sex on the floor next to the bloody body of the man just gruesomely killed. One surprise after another. So they've finally broken the last bit of ice between them and have become a couple? No, surprise again. They retire to their separate rooms and she leaves mysteriously for Poland before returning, if it's not Henk's dream, with her daughter. So are they going to live happily ever after on a farm with the graves of two slain gangsters? Who would want to think this is emotionally possible, even if it were realistic in that community? The inherent unsatisfactoriness of such an ending makes you look for other meanings, but without such an ending, the ironies and bizarre darkness of the film only seem greater. Whereas Under the Sun leaves you feeling there's something strong and decent in the troubled human spirit, The Polish Bride leaves you in some doubt.The fascinating elements of this film are all the things that are left unexplained, the way we have to guess, interpret and imagine what's going on behind the events and gestures and expressions we witness. But probably too much is left unsaid. And not just the fact that Anna's employers are underworld figures despite the legality of prostitution in Holland. If Anna is afraid of intimacy with Henk because of having been raped, she doesn't show it, or the movie doesn't let her show it. Her emotional state seems to heal faster than the wound over her eye, and she becomes so comfortable with Henk so quickly, that it's his sexual abstinence that has us more puzzled.One of the effective and priceless scenes is the meal in which a mother-like Anna officiously schools Henk in her etiquette of eating and praying and Henk nearly erupts in rage and frustration, unable to understand why he is allowing her of all people to treat him as if he were a child, but in a kind of curiosity and amazement, let's her go on. It's in such little ways that we're given to glimpse Henk's unspoken feelings for Anna.