54. KFF – POLISH FILM PANORAMA

Michał Kucharczyk reviewed 6 documentary films of 54th Krakow Film Festival non-competition section - Polish Film Panorama. Enjoy reading!

" I’m a Pole" Paweł Hejbudzki

Paweł Hejbudzki’s film can be seen as a response to two dominating discourses in Poland: national, and anti-national, leftist. While the goals and values of these political orientations can be defined easily, the film’s protagonist can’t be classified that easily, and remains an outsider, a lukewarm individual. The film is set during the memorable Independence March, when The Rainbow, an art installation by Julita Wojcik was set on fire by the march participants.

I feel pride! Pride that I’m a Pole! I am a Pole, aren’t I? – the movie opens with protagonist’s statement. We can see him among ONR (Polish National Revival organization) activists, shouting anti-communist rants. Moments later we see him sitting on a wall, reading newspaper article critical towards PiS (Law and Justice party) out loud. We can see that the young man is torn, just like his fellow peers: on the one hand he feels strong while being part of the crowd, on the other he is mindful enough to doubt in other march participants. He’s proud of himself, of his Pole identity, but when he looks at the march, he can only see football hools looking to start another riot, dunces who know nothing about their country and drunken teenagers, intoxicated with alcohol and the illusion of power that being in a group gives.

The man asks random people questions, but no one can give him a convincing answer, neither of their attitudes seem trustworthy. In one amusing scene he stands by police officers who look at him warily. He’s not provoking anyone, he’s only a bystander, observing but unable to understand.
In last shots of the film, he repeats like a mantra: fake hero. Does he mean himself?

"The Source" Marcin Sauter

Marcin Sauter, the director and cinematographer, definitely concentrated on image in this movie. The film is photographic: each shot illuminates the darkness of history of the abandoned, post Azeri- Armenian war Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

This concise film impression shows the story of a woman who inhabits an abandoned home with her son. Black and white images show their everydayness: drying nuts that pile up on the floor of their unfurnished room. The film also comprises shots of nature and ruins left by the war.

From the story a Russian man tells, we find out that the woman’s husband was killed during the war. The woman wanders to a spring where she supposedly meets the dead. And such is the form of the film: suspended in between life and death, constant transience and daydreaming.

"Starting Point" by Michał Szcześniak

In "Starting Point" we follow the fate of Aneta who is the inmate of a penitentiary for women. Gradually, we learn what happened in her life and what led to this situation. In the film, the awareness of the lost time is horrifying - outside the prison, there lives the daughter of the convicted woman, and the daughter is being biased against her mother. Aneta knows that she has to atone for what she has done, but she cannot come to terms with losing the love of her daughter, who is the most important person for her. This type of film is usually threatened with the kitsch sentimentality, however, this is not the case in this film. We get the true image of the protagonist, for whom the camera may be an opportunity to express what she feels.

Such an opportunity is also present in her meetings with an elderly lady, of whom Aneta takes care within the frames of community service. It is the most interesting plot in the film and at the same time the "starting point" for the discussion about Aneta's fate. The woman confronts her worldview with the disabled elderly woman, whose life has been marked by the disease. Mrs Helena has suffered from degenerative joint disease since her childhood; her situation started to deteriorate when she was to go to school, for which she could not wait. Doomed to watch the world through the window, she reads, talks and enjoys life in her own way. Aneta allowed herself to be incapacitated. Between the women, friendships starts to develop.

The most interesting scene of the film is Aneta's confession, during which it turns out that the end of the sentence (Aneta is to be conditionally released) is really the beginning of the true atonement, during which she would have to look into the eyes of people whom she let down and deal with human memory, which cannot be written anew. Hence, the moment of leaving prison is not the "starting point" of the situation. One can only start from the point in which one has understood the real penalty, reaching far beyond the wall of the penitentiary.

"The Shepherd's Song" by Vahram Mkhitaryan

Polish-Armenian production "The Shepherd's Song" depicts the life of blind Armenian family, whose father pastures goats at picturesque mountain slopes. What is immediately striking is the director's strategy of contrasting beautiful, long, picturesque shots and at the same time being aware that this paradisiacal nature surrounds people who cannot see it.

The protagonist of the film pastures goats, lives in harmony with nature, plays the flute and sings. Everything seems to indicate that he is happy, however, the eye disease in his family is hereditary. He planned to have four children, but he has one son, who in addition began to lose his eyesight and had to go to a special school in the city. The father misses him very much, the mother alludes to moving to Yerevan. However, in Yerevan they would not be able to support themselves and here they have a herd of goats - their entire property The son also misses his parents very much and asks them to come.

When the father finally comes to the capital city, we witness the reversal of their roles. The son shows the father round in the city, shows him stairs and monuments, among which the shepherd feels lost. It is the clash of two worlds - the son gradually begins to belong to that asphalt world, as the father calls it. For the blind shepherd city is a jungle - beautiful, with its diversity of shapes and smells, but also dangerous. The end of the film does not bring any solutions to this problem, the only possible solution is to come to terms with the world and how it was designed by God

"A Visit" by Matej Bobrik

"A Visit" by Matej Bobrik is a remarkable film. The film, almost completely devoid of words, shows a series of images the common subject of which is waiting. We look at elderly, anxious people, preparing for some kind of an event, probably the eponymous visit. The waiting is prolonged, the man stands by the fence, impatient, pulls the closed gate and looks upon the forest path.

Finally, rain comes, and the inhabitants of the mysterious centre escape into sleep. What is particularly striking is the alienation of the place where the elderly live. Located in the middle of the forest, it seems to be some kind of "no-place," forgotten, isolated area. The protagonists hardly talk to each other, sometimes it looks as if they did not know one another.

It is exactly this lack of literalness what makes "A Visit" a deeply metaphorical film. The shots, patiently accompanying the protagonists and persistently unmoving, evoke the topos of death. Maybe it is death what the residents of this makeshift building are waiting for, a building which seems like one stage in the transition to another world. All this makes an impression of some kind of unreal waiting room of life, filled with people who do not belong to life anymore, even though life still belongs to them for a moment.

"Super Unit" by Teresa Czepiec

In 1972, the project designed by Mieczysław Król was completed in Katowice. The block, called the Super Unit, was the biggest residential building in Poland and was intended to be the embodiment of the socialist ideas of communal character of place to live. Inspired by French building by Le Corbusier, it was its truncated version, adjusted to Polish People's Republic, a much poorer version. Recently, the block has been renovated and it is still inhabited.

The film concentrates not only on the idea which inspired the construction of the building ("thanks to meeting the basic needs, its inhabitants will be healthy and happy" - according to the initial inscription), but on its implementation. The camera floats through unending corridors of the Super Unit, visiting random flats. We watch a woman who obsessively loves her animals, a young man constantly training his muscles, and, at last, the staff - cleaning lady, dustman.

The film's director, Teresa Czepiec, does not add any commentary of hers, which seems to be unnecessary anyway: the ideas of universal happiness of people living in this concrete monster turned out to be a total failure. The box shape of the flats and overwhelming length of the corridors are far from the promised Arcadia. However, even in this contemporary ferroconcrete ark, people can live comfortably, protect their privacy, help each other, transform the space according to their tastes and needs. Neighbours come to talk to each other, their doors are plastered with post-it note pads forming the shape of a heart. "Super Unit" shows the routine and passes lightly over it. Thanks to it, the film is very real and devoted to the protagonists about whom it tells the story.

Michał Kucharczyk