Fantaspoa Film Fest: Alpha Male (2022)

The Polish comedy-crime-drama “Alpha Male” is an entertaining, intense, and demented movie — but for all the right reasons.

Alpha Male delivers the perfect balance of subtle dark humor, odd situations, and thick tension.

Piotrek (Adam Bobik) is a self-doubting, non-assertive man who has agreed to attend a cessation course at the urging of his fiancee. He mistakenly walks into the wrong class and chooses to participate in each appointment. The film captivates the viewer as we travel through this web.

The film is strange, and the overall mood never dissipates.

Leader (Miroslaw Haniszewski), a life coach, uses unusual methods that cause the men in the group to enter into a pack mentality and believe in an authoritarian female-run organization termed Menstop. The speculated goal of this association is to induce the mental breakage of the masculine gendered to render obedience.

This ideology reflects narcissistic inclinations and hints at the inner workings of the man referred to only as Leader.

Alpha Male serves as a commentary on mental illness and manipulation while criticizing the self-help industry.

Who hasn’t questioned the sanity or authenticity of a socially prominent life coach?

The working theory of Alpha Male is a more sinister concept of No Ma’am, a men’s rights group organized by Married with Children protagonist Al Bundy.

This organization seeks to empower men to put women back in their place. Piotrek’s fiancee is identified as the aggressor for urging her mate to seek treatment before the marriage. The initial visit includes an evaluation of everything wrong in the relationship.

A comedic moment enters at the thirty-minute mark when Daniel, a fellow classmate, shares a tale of the toxic femininity he faces at home.

The story is an exaggeration in which his woman is depicted as a growling creature from The Ring, disallowing him a moment’s peace. This scene makes excellent use of opaque shades juxtaposed against lighter tones. The musical arrangement compliments the scene with a playfully eerie tone. The monstrous woman ties up his free time with repetitive tasks such as taking out the trash only to bring it back in and sift through refuse to locate items accidentally thrown out.

Although morbid in its telling, this is one of the more humorous moments in the film.

Alpha Male is obscure, quirky, and manages to keep the audience hooked while heavily satirizing the self-improvement outfit.

One of the scenes leading up to the film’s climax exemplifies this beautifully.

While in private conversation, Leader corrects Piotrek when asked to name his three favorite people. The guru rectifies his subordinate by reminding him that he ignores and places everyone before himself. This information is later used against him in a manipulation tactic to influence the breaking of the engagement.

Things pick up during the third act as Piotrek decides to leave the group and demands the return of his mobile phone. Mirroring a comment made earlier in the film. “A man taken out of his comfort zone shows his true face.”

Leader drops the facade and bears his nature in a confrontation with Piotrek when paranoia sets in, the pupil stands accused of being a spy for Menstop, the feminist structure. Leader escalates, beating an elderly colleague to death before dashing out a window and incriminating Piotrek as the assailant.

One of the more striking lines of the film is during a psychiatric evaluation to determine if Piotrek can stand trial.

“There are so many crazy people out there that we should keep the healthy ones here. To protect them.”

This statement strongly resonates as one is called to reconsider the ills one can avoid in isolation, but that is not living. The dagger takes a tongue-in-cheek twist as the audience realizes a conspiracy to protect Leader as he ascends from motivational influencer to politician.

Currently working its way through the 2022 festival circuit, Alpha Male, a Polish-language film, has racked up some well-deserved nominations and wins. If you get a chance to see this one, it’s well worth your time.

We had the pleasure of screening it at this year’s Fantaspoa International Film Fest. Your next chance to catch it will be at the wonderful Cinequest Film Festival, taking place August 16-19, 2022, in the Silicon Valley.