Charting No.4 on Netflix’s films today, ‘Anniversary’ captures, shocks, and provokes its viewers from its opening scenes. Reflected in the boundaries of a mirror, arguably illustrating the director’s core message of introspection not only at oneself, but our societies, the film achieves a thought-provoking plot that all but resolves at its conclusion. ‘Anniversary’ offers a striking-relevant drama to its viewers.
Jan Komasa has become a well-known director of provocative and morally interesting cinema, and ‘Anniversary’ falls nothing short of these features. The plot centres around a large, loving, and tight-nit family – ideal and fairy-tale-like. Dynamics waver and drama unfolds with the introduction of a new girlfriend and her radical political perspective. Ambitious, careful, and, above all, calculated, her academic and career aspirations are all but modest and ordinary. Her extremist political proposals disorder the entire family and after some years, ultimately topple familial relationships and their social reputations.
Although a well-crafted drama on the one hand, I believe that ‘Anniversary’ is far more than a psychological, mind-bending, watch-and-forget thriller newly out on Netflix. First, immersing viewers in the midst of a reputable, lovingly close family, one becomes accustomed with a society-like group. To myself, as I’m sure to many, the family itself appeared to be representative of a society – a variety of people, interacting with each other with their own separate dynamics. Where this becomes interesting is when Komasa introduces the dramatic device of ‘The Change’ and we see how this affects every family member individually. Just like a radical politics would affect everyone differently within a given society, we see these effects in the central family: oppositional and supportive extremists; peace-keepers and blind followers; the ignorant and the pattern-aware. And this family, or this society, entirely falls apart in the wake of the impacts ‘The Change’ brings about.
‘The Change’, the extremist political proposal acting as the plot device and drama vehicle, is also significantly ironic in itself. The proposal drives several changes, but the question soon becomes apparent concerning the boundaries of such a change. Is the change really a beneficial social change, or rather an arrogant desire to prove-oneself and assertion of dominance over those that one views as inferior? This eerily seems to resonate with several current political and social ‘changes’ occurring worldwide today, casting a moral spotlight and diving deeper into the mechanisms that drive such movements.
There are a few things that we are left short of, however. Liz, who proposes ‘The Change’, is a rather mysterious, reserved, and cunning character. Apart from her past academic motivations, we don’t learn much more about Liz’s reasons for driving such radical politics further and further, beyond and ignorant of criticisms and warnings. We also don’t learn much more about the internal mechanisms of ‘The Change’ and why it becomes appealing to the general public, as well as any other points in its manifesto. We therefore get only a surface level and rather vague overview of the plot device itself, which could deepen any morally provoking aspects of ‘Anniversary’. Alternatively, this could potentially be an intentional structural choice by Komasa: drawing the focus away from the specifics of the politics and instead illuminating the dangers of extremist and uncontrolled views and how this destroys one particular family makes the plot simpler, yet not detrimental to its depth. We can clearly see all the changes and instabilities developing and growing and its grave consequences, which we can easily extrapolate and apply to the larger picture.
Overall, ‘Anniversary’ illustrates the dire impacts of political extremism and radical doctrinaire on a family-level that disturbingly mirrors our own typical society dynamics. Komasa keeps us from a fairy-tale, Hollywood, ‘happily-ever-after’ ending as a reminder to reflect on the world and politics around us, as well as consider the reality of the changes that are occurring and the relationships and foundations this can completely and entirely overturn and bring to the ground.