Spoor

Spoor is a 2017 Polish crime film directed by Agnieszka Holland, adapted from the novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. At Berlin, the film won the Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear). It was selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. The Polish-language title, Pokot, is a hunting term that refers to the count of wild animals killed. The English title Spoor refers to the traces and tracks left behind by the hunted game. Plot The film is set in a remote mountainous region of the Kłodzko Valley in south-western Poland, where an eccentric elderly woman, Janina Duszejko, lives with her two dogs. Her dogs disappear one day while she is giving Nowina, a local woman, a ride to the store. She confronts her neighbour who she calls "Big Foot", a notorious poacher in whose traps animals die in agony. One night she is awakened by Magota, another neighbour, who informs her that Big Foot is dead. Duszejko is questioned by the local police chief, to whom she makes complaints about her missing dogs which he dismisses. After seeing Duszejko, the police chief meets with Wnetzak, a local businessman, who gives the chief an ultimatum about money the chief owes him. Duszejko complains to the local priest about the loss of her dogs but she is chastised for being blasphemous to treat animals like humans. Disturbed by the local hunting activity and the killing of animals in the area, she attempts to interrupt a local hunt but is stopped and humiliated by Wnetzak. In the winter, she and Dyzio, an IT expert working for the police, see the police chief's abandoned vehicle at night and discover the chief's body nearby. He is dead from a blow to the head and there are animal tracks near the body. Questioned about the body by the prosecutor, who is Magota's son, she talks about the tracks she found and her theory of astrology. The prosecutor dismisses her theories. Duszejko befriends Dyzio and Nowina, who now works for Wnetzak in a shop by day and in a brothel that Wnetzak runs by night. Dyzio is thankful to Duszejko for keeping his epilepsy a secret or else he would lose his job. Nowina has a younger brother who is being abused by their father and has attempted to gain custody of him but learns that Wnetzak has reported her as unfit twice.