For the sake of my mental health, I avoid documentaries about people who have some heavy right wing ideologies. I checked my Letterboxd and the last three that I saw are Bhala Loughs and one about the IDF. That last one may not count but Polish Prayers definitely does, showing someone telling 2LGBT+ people to ‘ask for forgiveness’. One of those people is fedora wearing Antek who takes his girlfriend to Catholic and Christian rallies. He finds churches as a refuge, especially at a time when he’s having some doubts about his community and his religion. 

What Polish Prayers does best is show the differences and, ugh, similarities between the Polish religious right and others. I’m sure Poland has its share of mouth breathing homophobes, the kind we see in documentaries set in America. And sure, there’s traces of that during the anti-gay counterprotests and basement dwelling fortysomething who can’t see his kids. But choosing fedora wearing Antek is a more interesting decision, showing how the ‘normal’ and threatening right wingers are. The documentary also shows that normalcy is relative, as it shows his girlfriend silently reacting to him and everyone.

Normalcy is relative and has layers, a unique perspective that Polish Prayers takes and does so to its advantage. A worse film can show Antek praying and can double down on his corniness, just like his Polish Brotherhood. But that image follows one when he’s at a party and is visibly depressed, that depression triggered possibly off camera. Visually, it is great during its two scenes as it captures someone who feels alone in a crowd. Those moments show that this is a documentary that respects its subjects during their silences as well as when they finally speak.

Polish Prayers captures Antek and his fellow members of the brotherhood in, at a minimum, a period of two volatile years. I’ll assume that the documentary does most of its work in 2019, a year of crowds and political rallies. Its third act mostly takes place after COVID, when the members of the brotherhood try to talk through Zoom. Someone at the brotherhood shows off his stash of hosts (holy wafers for Catholics) while Antek does some double tasking. Antek’s quiet quitting of the brotherhood probably started months beforehand, the sheep on a greener path that he prefers.

Even with this conversion, Antek is a comedic figure, but he is still one that viewers surprisingly root for. One of Polish Prayers‘ funniest moments is a screen where we hear a conversation between him and director Hanka Nobis. The documentary then cuts to him with the new girlfriend marching during a local Pride parade. As we all know, 2LGBT+ allyship is a gateway drug to abortion so a pro-choice rally is absolutely next. Calling Antek funny may be reductive because he is a man in search of truth, as we should be.

Watch Polish Prayers on OVID.