The Last Family

The Last Family (2016) is Jan P. Matuszyński's Polish biographical drama, ready to watch online on iFILM. It tracks almost three decades in the life of painter Zdzisław Beksiński and the people closest to him.

It opens in 1977, as son Tomasz moves into his own flat in the same building as his parents. Zdzisław spends his days painting bleak, dreamlike canvases to classical music on tape and filming everything around him on a camcorder. Zofia tries to hold the household together while the fragile, self-destructive Tomasz keeps teetering on the edge. Andrzej Seweryn plays the father, Dawid Ogrodnik the son, and Aleksandra Konieczna the mother.

Matuszyński built much of the film from Beksiński's own home footage, which gives this intimate saga of love, illness and loss an almost documentary pulse. Seweryn took the best actor prize at Locarno for the role. It's heavy going, with no easy comfort offered — but the kind of film that lodges in you long after. Stream The Last Family (2016) online on iFILM.