“A decres­cendo is in fact a cres­cendo, because the less time we have got left, the more mean­ing­ful everything is, and emo­tions become more intense” — says Marta Minorow­icz, author of short doc­u­ment­ary film “Decrescendo”.

How did the idea for the film come up? Was it the char­ac­ter of young psy­cho­lo­gist Tomek that was the start­ing point, or was it the rest home?

Marta Minorow­icz: It was the rest home. It is an incred­ible place sur­roun­ded by a beau­ti­ful garden, it has almost 500 res­id­ents, and it is loc­ated near the city centre, but with a com­pletely dif­fer­ent energy. One could say that time does not exist there; the house is rife with the res­id­ents’ remin­is­cences, filled with their stor­ies. Remark­able.


How long did the film­ing take and how much time did you need to accus­tom the res­id­ents of the rest home with the pres­ence of the cam­era?

M. M.: Before start­ing film­ing, I vis­ited the rest home for a few months on my own look­ing for char­ac­ters for the film. At this stage I had already received a lot of help from Tomasz Potaczek, thanks to whom I could find my bear­ings in the maze of cor­ridors, rooms, and beds. The film­ing took around 30 days, which were exten­ded through­out the whole year. Almost every month along with Paweł Chorzępa, cam­era oper­ator, Domin­ika Cza­kon and Jasiek Mos­zu­mański, who oper­ated sound by turns, we would spend 2 – 3 days in the rest home shoot­ing mater­ial. Every one of the sub­jects respon­ded to the pres­ence of the cam­era in an indi­vidual man­ner, e.g., per­suad­ing Włodz­i­mierz – a bal­let artist – to accede to film­ing took me half a year, and it took con­sec­ut­ive 2 – 3 months for him to get accus­tomed to the cam­era and “learn” how to for­get about its pres­ence.


Apart from psy­cho­lo­gist Tomasz, the film’s nar­rat­ive also dis­tin­guishes a few other char­ac­ters from within the rest home’s res­id­ents. Were they to appear as more developed char­ac­ters from the very begin­ning, or was it through the nature of their char­ac­ters that the film took a par­tic­u­lar dir­ec­tion?

M. M.: I knew from the begin­ning that Zosia, whom we called “Philo­sopher”, Włodz­i­mierz, a bal­let artist, and blind Tomek would act as very import­ant char­ac­ters, as they were for the psy­cho­lo­gist, Tomasz. This determ­ined the dir­ec­tion of the film, and this is why these people are dis­tin­guished from the other res­id­ents.


What effect did you want to achieve by pla­cing a young per­son in the milieu of eld­erly people? Was it to emphas­ise the con­trast, con­struct the film’s mes­sage, or pos­sibly show that the two seem­ingly dis­tant worlds are very close to one another?

M. M.: The rest home is a nat­ural work­ing envir­on­ment for Tomasz, so I did not have to induct him to it. Why did Tomek become one of the film’s prot­ag­on­ists? Because from the begin­ning I found that he is very inter­est­ing; whereas at the same time he could suc­cess­fully be doing a thou­sand other things, he spends time with his patients, talks with them, takes them out­side. What keeps him there? I do not think I have found a con­clus­ive answer. How­ever, it seems to me that Tomek gives his all in deal­ing with his patients, and he receives a lot in return. This is why he is still there. This exchange of exper­i­ence, the flow of energy, is a good les­son for us. The immens­ity of the eld­erly people’s wis­dom or know­ledge is often free for the tak­ing. You give some­thing of your­self, but you receive much more in return. I hope that Tomasz’s pres­ence demon­strates how many feel­ings and ardent emo­tions eld­erly people hold beneath the sur­face. His pres­ence alone made them emerge. Because he is young. Because he is the reflec­tion of them­selves 40 years back, the image that they remembered and pre­served. Thanks to him the bal­let artist felt like dan­cing again, and Zosia yiel­ded to make new acquaint­ances. It can appear to us that eld­erly people are kind of dormant, and unre­spons­ive to stim­uli, but, in defi­ance of their age, the “Decres­cendo” char­ac­ters are still full of pas­sion and hun­ger for life. It is incred­ible that, in this respect, the “young” and the “old” are no dif­fer­ent. This decres­cendo is in fact a cres­cendo, because the less time we have got left, the more mean­ing­ful everything is, and emo­tions become more intense.


Has mak­ing this doc­u­ment­ary film con­sol­id­ated your approach to old age and passing, or the con­trary – it has con­sid­er­ably changed it ?

M. M.: In the film Zosia tells Tomasz some­thing that meant a lot to me. “How beau­ti­ful this tree is. It has lost all decor, and yet it still delights,” she says. This sen­tence, in my opin­ion, says it all about old age and passing. I really want to believe that beauty can be saved even after los­ing the decor.


Did you, as a doc­u­ment­ary film-​maker being so close to another per­son and his/​her emo­tions, face any dilem­mas dur­ing the mak­ing of “Decres­cendo” that influ­enced the final ver­sion of the film?

M. M.: The fun­da­mental dilemma was whether I should show the whole nat­ur­al­ism that accom­pan­ies old age and the life a rest home, or rather avoid it and look for dif­fer­ent ways of show­ing old age. Should I shock the viewer with unsight­li­ness, or walk a dif­fer­ent path? I chose the lat­ter. And much of the mater­ial was instantly deleted when I thought that it would rob the “Decres­cendo” char­ac­ters of their pri­vacy.



Marta Minorow­icz was inter­viewed by Olga Słowiakowska.


(Trans­la­tion by Agnieszka Mruk)


(20.05.2011)