After last year’s Alternative Christmas Film Advent Calendar’s globetrotting venture this year things settle in to spend Christmas at home. There are a good deal of classic British Christmas films, and plenty of festive features which love to pitch a rom-com in London or a castle in the country, but this year the Calendar grabs a mince pie and takes a look at some lesser known or thought of British Christmas films.
As the weekend, and Christmas Day, approaches the more direct Christmas films continue as today sees perhaps one of the most obscure films yet for the Calendar. Set largely on Christmas Eve, Wigilia follows a Polish woman, Agata (Iwona Glowinska), observing the tradition of the same name. The film opens with her setting up a table in a flat she cleans, laying out a large spread with spaces at the table for her family – still in Poland while she’s in Scotland – and, as is tradition, a special seat set aside in case a wandering pilgrim arrives.
However, having planned on spending wigilia and Christmas alone, Agata is surprised when someone does actually turn up, the brother of her employer. Robbie (Duglas T. Stewart) was also planning on spending the holiday alone, taking refuge from the struggles of his life in his brother’s flat. With nowhere else to go the pair spend Christmas Eve in each other’s company, opening up as they share the large meal before them.
Very much rooted in traditional Christmas film themes there’s a gentle nature in which the two central figures develop their acquaintanceship in the spirit of the season. Opening up and getting to know each other things leaks into the next day, with the effects of the conversations reaching into the next year. Over the course of just over 70 minutes a likable relationship is formed from two people eventually finding solace in suddenly not spending Christmas alone, once past the initial surprise and hesitation of this being the case.
The drama certainly develops with more personal details for the central duo in the latter stages, but still generally bringing things back to that festive meal that brought them together in the first place. As it is for Agata and Robbie, Wigilia is a film of in-the-moment points and developments facing the unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome prospect of company at this time of year. It’s an interesting, very stripped back, indie film highlighting characters and relationships, fighting off isolation and loneliness at Christmas, capturing a quiet sense of what this time of year can do, and feel like, for people in a handful of contrasting ways.
Wigilia can be watched in the following places:
Amazon
Apple TV/ iTunes
Plex
To find out if you can buy, rent or stream the film anywhere else, particularly in your country, JustWatch should have the details of where to do so.
Just A Little Bit Random 