"THE PALACE" BY TOMASZ WOLSKI
Agnieszka Południak writes about the most recent film by Tomasz Wolski and an interesting meeting with the artist within the frames of the 52nd Krakow Film Festival.
The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, the former Stalin Palace of Culture and Science, built up in 1955 as a gift from the Soviet nation to the Polish nation, still awakens strong emotions in the inhabitants, irritates them, but also has many supporters, especially from among the younger generation of residents of Warsaw. Apart from the Warsaw Mermaid, it is one of the symbols of Warsaw, the most recognisable building in the city, visible almost from every corner.
The film history of the Palace is very rich; necessarily, it appears in almost every film set in Warsaw. It is demolished in "Calls Controlled" by Sylwester Chęciński, appears in "The Little Apocalypse" by Tadeusz Konwicki, the cult comedy "Teddy Bear" by Stanisław Bareja, and in the third season of the series "Ekstradycja" by Wojciech Wójcik, the Mafia attempts to buy the Palace.
Tomasz Wolski shows us a full portrait of the building, for the first time, in the documentary film called "The Palace", depicting the entire film monograph of the Palace of Culture and Science. He shows the viewers the contemporary image of this place, referring to its Communist past only in a few scenes. The opening sequence, coming from the archival films documenting the building of the Palace, brings up only smiles on the faces of contemporary viewers. In this way, the director makes us understand, that he is not interested in the difficult history, but wants to present the Palace as a kind of a microcosm, still vibrating with life today. "I wasn't interested in politics at all when I was shooting this film, " emphasised the director at the meeting after the première at the 52nd Krakow Film Festival. He pointed out that refuting all these myths about the building itself, which accumulated during the years, was a much more interesting task. "People are afraid of that which they don't know, they think that there is a secret passage in the Palace's basement, leading from Warsaw to Moscow, but there are only cats there," said Tomasz Wolski.
The film takes the viewer on a journey, to the labyrinth of corridors, to the places which seem totally uninteresting; the well-known ones such as Kinoteka, the Congress Hall, and the Palace of Youth with its swimming-pool, as well as less known ones, such as technical rooms and the basement, together with the recently discovered rooms. "I had no problems in gaining access to the places in the old building which interested me, but, of course, because of the security reasons I couldn't go everywhere," the director says about shooting the film.
Wolski's camera shows us, most of all, the people associated with this place, if only for a moment; we see the homeless as well as the artists performing in the Congress Hall, the employees, the control room directors, training instructors, bodyguards who name themselves "the Big Brothers", observing each corner of the Palace on their monitors, "it tells the story of our times, cameras are everywhere, in shops, banks, the Palace itself is full of cameras; interestingly, it is a connection between the present and the world of the People's Republic of Poland, " said the director.
The documentalist told us during the meeting, how long did the shooting of the film take: "For the first time, I thought about making a film about the Palace about eight years ago, but then this subject surpassed me, and later I returned to it; the shooting alone lasted two years, with a break for my previous documentary "Doctors," said the director.
Tomasz Wolski managed to capture in his film the everyday life of the Palace itself as well as its employees. The result is the full-length documentary - well balanced, distanced and with a little bit of sense of humour.
Agnieszka Południak