Can freedom truly be free?
This is the eternal question that Polish filmmakersHelena GanjalyanandBartosk Skpakseek to unravel in their hauntingly beautifulGlorious Summer.
What did they learn?
Image via Rozbrat Films
What did they experience?
What did they enjoy?
Its a repetition designed to reinforce that they only enjoy these glorious summer days because of this omnipresent force.
Image via Rozbrat Films
Here, the liminality of isolation feels pitiless, mocking.
Its an allegory for the hollow grandeur of financial freedom.
What if there is something better, just over the fence?
Image via Rozbrat Films
Even that concept is tainted with the idea that they mustdieto achieve it.
Only through quiet submission and death are they afforded something better than their current lives.
The unseen force that ensures their peaceful existence also ensures that they do not rebel against the system.
Glorious Summer is a 2025 film depicting three women living in a Renaissance palace, sustained by an enigmatic system providing all necessities. Bound by the condition not to cross a surrounding wall, their seemingly idyllic existence reveals a darker reality, exploring themes of security and responsibility.
Its also a clever machine for the filmmakers to never truly reveal the mechanism behind this glorious existence.
