‘Countries’ Archives
Escape from the ‘Liberty’ Cinema
Ucieczka z kina 'Wolność' Poland, 1990, colour, 87 minsPremiered on 15 October 1990, just over a year after the election of Poland's first non-communist government in over four decades, Wojciech Marczewski's Escape from the 'Liberty' Cinema offers a bizarre but rather engaging combination of anti-communist satire and film-versus-reality [...]
Censorship as a Creative Force: Screentalk
Last night I attended the keenly-awaited Censorship as a Creative Force Screentalk discussion at London's Barbican Arts Centre, in which Jiří Menzel, István Szabó and Agnieszka Holland (an eleventh-hour replacement for Andrzej Wajda) discussed their experience of censorship under the various totalitarian régimes under which they had to spend [...]
People from an Empty Zone
Ludzie z pustego obszaru Poland, 1957, black and white, 15 minsOne of the most immediately striking aspects of Kazimierz Karabasz and Władysław Ślesicki's second collaboration is that they've clearly devoted a lot of thought to the nature and purpose of what they were attempting. Whereas many of the films made in the first year of the 'black [...]
Krystyna Janda in Dublin
A Mind @ Play has an account of a personal appearance by the great Polish actress Krystyna Janda at Dublin's National Gallery last Saturday - and also includes the revelation that she has a blog (albeit, unsurprisingly, in Polish). At some point in the next fortnight my Wajda survey should have reached Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru, 1976), [...]
Lublin Old Town
Lubelska starówka Poland, 1956, black and white, 5 minsOne characteristic of the 'black series' that became increasingly apparent in 1956 was the use of sarcasm, though it was rarely deployed quite as overtly as this. In many ways a sequel to-cum-parody of the likes of Return to the Old Town (Powrót na Stare Miasto, 1954), the film begins with [...]
Warsaw ‘56
Warszawa 1956 Poland, 1956, black and white, 10 minsEssentially a cross between Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton's classic British documentary Housing Problems (1935) and a particularly sadistic child-in-peril suspense thriller, Warsaw '56 is the most sheerly terrifying film in the 'black series' of documentaries that shook up Polish cinema in the [...]
Little Town
Miasteczko Poland, 1956, black and white, 10 minsThe gauntlet is thrown down from the opening title, a quotation from the then recently deceased poet Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński (1905-53) that says "How to speak the truth about Poland..." ("Jak tu prawdę o Polsce powiedzieć...") - the largely correct implication being that Polish [...]
Another Wajda update
I've just heard, courtesy of John Riley's new (and excellent) COUNTERpoint blog, that although Andrzej Wajda is too ill to attend the Censorship as a Creative Force panel discussion at London's Barbican Arts Centre on Friday next week, he'll be recording a ten-minute video address for it.His physical place will be taken by Agnieszka Holland, whose [...]
Rocky Soil
Skalna ziemia Poland, 1956, black and white, 16 minsMany of the films in the 'black series' of Polish documentaries from 1955-58 sought to expose the reality behind the official rhetoric, and Rocky Soil offers a particularly good example. Set in and around the rural hamlet of Gorce, the film's unnamed protagonist (and first-person narrator, [...]
Where the Devil Says Goodnight
Gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc Poland, 1956, black and white, 11 minsThe first professional film by then recent film-school graduates Kazimierz Karabasz and Władysław Ślesicki, Where the Devil Says Goodnight is considered one of the key films of the 'black series' of documentaries that opened a debate about Poland's social problems in the [...]