Today is Monday, April 29, 2024. It’s late here, owing to Elliot and me watching a relatively new Polish crime thriller called Operation Hyacinth on Netflix which takes place during the country in the mid-80s and concerns the Polish government’s response to the AIDS crisis and its subsequent crackdown on homosexual activity in the name of public health. In reality, the officers in charge of the operation used it as a means to gather information on the nation’s gay population and use it for blackmail purposes.

The film follows a detective named Robert (Tomasz Zietek), an up-and-coming officer with a beautiful fiancee. He is thrust into investigating the case of a murdered millionaire who was discovered to be a homosexual and the case is “cleared” when a suspect is picked up and is found hanging in his jail cell, after he allegedly confessed to the murder. However, Robert is not satisfied with the closing of the case so readily and he begins pursuing leads himself without the assistance of higher-ups in the department. What is sensitive about his continuing to pursue the case is that his father also works in the Secret Service as a top official.

While raiding a public toilet known as a gay cruising ground, Robert meets Arek, a young, queer university student used to evading police raids. Taken in by Arek’s warmth and self-confidence, Robert decides not to arrest him, but instead to use him as an informant. At one point, Robert stumbles upon a video and photographs of a gay sex party going on in a place called the “villa.” Soon the identity of several partygoers becomes apparent and the key to solving the murders of other gay men is solved by this young detective who finds himself drawn into an attraction with the young philosophy student. The detective has to come to some final resolution as to who he is and what he must do to continue living on this planet – even though his fiancee senses something is wrong with him as time wears on.

Director Piotr Domalewski shoots the film in shadowy browns and grays, conveying both the bleakness of Soviet Bloc Poland and the shadowy nature of Robert’s position. Domalewski also populates the film with lots of mirror and window imagery, underlying Robert’s own sexuality crisis . . . and the idea that everywhere, someone could be watching. And, indeed, someone was watching this intrepid detective throughout his investigation because of the involvement of higher-ups in the police force.

When I was watching the film, at first not knowing that this story was taking place so many years earlier, I was struck by how this film might have been compared to the American thriller of the 80s called Cruising starring Al Pacino who goes undercover to uncover a serial killer of gays in New York City. The film received an unparalleled amount of criticism by the gay community at the time because of its focus on rough sex among the queer community. And reading an online review of the film corroborates my mental comparison of this film to that William Friedkin-directed effort in this quote: “We have a feeling that this is the movie William Friedkin set out to make with Cruising – a taut thriller about a man ever-fascinated with gay sexuality and culture . . . maybe because he finds it a turn-on.”

According to this review, which appeared in Queerty, by David Reddish, on October 17, 2021, the year this film came out on Netflix, it’s mentioned that this hunting of LGBTQ+ people still goes on in a similar fashion around Eastern Europe and Africa today. Even such robust democracies like the United States, the United Kingdom, and other western nations have their own histories of hunting queers (see also: the Lavender Scare). And there is no guarantee then that this won’t happen again in this country if a certain orange-haired demon ever wins the White House once more in 2024. Here is another salient quote: “Operation Hyacinth itself may have ended in 1987, but the mentality behind it still rules in Poland. The film is a warning that the country is still treading water, in deadly seas.”

All in all, the film offered much food for thought. Even the dubbing effort was quite good, in my estimation. Generally, I don’t like dubbed films, but here, the dialogue matched the spoken word pretty well. How, I don’t know.

So if you’re in the mood for a moody thriller like this one, go watch it. There’s just too much to watch on Netflix and other streaming services these days and it was I who selected it for both of us to view. Elliot, I’m glad to report, was pleased.

Today was quite the summer day, with temps in the low 80s. But the temperature is supposed to be almost 20 degrees lower tomorrow, with temps around 65. The weather seems to be bipolar these days.

Stay safe and be well.