The City Will Tell Us What It Is We Lack

The Lure (2015) Dir. Agnieszka Smoczyńska

Two mermaids, Golden and Silver, come ashore in 1980s Poland and join a struggling band.

“Help us come ashore, there's no need to fear. We won't eat you, my dear. Eat you, eat you, eat you…” - Golden & Silver

The Lure is a lot of things all at once. Initially conceived as a semi-biographical tale about the Wrońska sisters, who grew up in the bars and “dancing restaurants” of Poland:

“At first the story was supposed to be a simple psychological drama — a biography of the Wrońska sisters, [Barbara (Basia) and Zuzanna (Zuzia)], with whom our screenwriter, Robert Bolesto, was friendly and whose parents performed at dancing restaurants. Their childhoods were full of vodka, parties, and absent parents, which Basia felt uncomfortable exposing.” - Agnieszka Smoczyńska

Director Agnieszka Smoczynska was intrigued by the premise, having grown up in similar bars and restaurants during the 1980s. Both Smoczynska and Bolesto were keen on capturing the Poland of their youth how they remembered it: colourful, bright, erotic and exciting. Despite the grey and melancholic reality of Soviet-era Poland in the eighties. 

“Under Communism, dancing restaurants were very popular. They were places where people came to enjoy live performances of Polish and American hits played by great musicians. On Fridays and Saturdays, there were special programs with an emcee, a stripper, a magician, and a band, and people could dance in pairs. The dancing restaurant culture was typical for Eastern Bloc countries. It was a world where one could escape politics. The dancing connected people from different spheres—bureaucrats, directors, cab drivers, and bankers would all go there to have a good time. Dancing restaurants also had better food, like meat, Coca-Cola, good vodka, cognac—things one couldn’t buy in grocery stores.” - Agnieszka Smoczyńska

Eventually, the idea of making the sisters mermaids evolved the project and it mutated into a musical horror. At once a relatively faithful retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale The Little Mermaid (with dashes of Homer’s Odyssey), and a Soviet-era Polish period piece. 

If you poured Eurovision into a blender with Brazil, Species, and Cabaret, you might get something like The Lure.

I feel like there are some people who read that sentence and are already 100% in. Hi! I think we should be friends.

Smoczyńska talked about the challenges of making a Polish musical by stating: 

“In Poland there are no musicals. So we were inspired by Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz and Cabaret, and Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier. Also, The Rocky Horror Picture Show; however, the tone may be similar but the visual side is completely different. Also an inspiration were the video clips by Björk.” - Agnieszka Smoczyńska

The fairy tales of Anderson were often dark, horrific and tragic and the mermaids in The Lure are in keeping with that tradition. While The Little Mermaid is one of Anderson’s own stories, and not one of his retold folk tales, you can see the origins of it in the myth of the Selkie. A Scottish seal-like creature that was known to shapeshift and get involved in relationships on shore. If its original skin was discovered, it could be forced to remain on land and coerced into marriage. The idea of stealing agency and independence from the Selkie remains in Anderson’s Mermaid telling, or at least, parts of it remain. The Lure, I think, steers closer to the Selkie myth and how it can be used as an allegory about the ways women can be tricked and gaslit into losing parts of themselves.

It’s all this, and it has bangers. Camp, weird, sexy, glitter-coated body horror with teeth. You won’t have seen another film remotely like it. How rare is that?

Two thumbs up!

Where can I watch it in the UK?

Annoyingly, The Lure isn’t available to stream anywhere right now. In the past I’d seen it was on Netflix, but the only way to legitimately watch it currently is to buy a physical DVD/Blu-ray.

Pairs well with

Let’s keep the theme on unique, one-of-a-kind horror films with a stand-out soundtrack. House (1977, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, again - not available to stream anywhere and the Criterion Blu-ray isn’t cheap) should work well.

An experimental comedy horror that was the result of Toho Studios approaching Obayashi to make a film like Jaws. That this is the result of that brief is just delightful. CINEMA!

Features a brilliant soundtrack from Japanese rock band Godiego.

Further Reading

• Smoczyńska introducing The Lure.
• An interview with Smoczyńska at Criterion.
• I give you: Bill Hader in the Criterion closest talking about his love of House. 

Other Recommendations

• “That's nice. Sorry, I'm eating a Popsicle.” John Carpenter was told he was a modern master of horror and that was his response. You can read the full interview here. He’s been in his I Don’t Give A Damn phase for a while and I enjoy that all he wants to do is play video games and watch basketball. But when he bothers to engage with a question, you can tell he still has a lot to say about horror.