‘Countries’ Archives
A Generation
PokoleniePoland, 1955, black and white, 83 minsIt's easy to overrate A Generation. Always one of the most straightforward of Andrzej Wajda's films to get hold of, thanks largely to its regular bundling with the far more accomplished Kanal (Kanał, 1957) and Ashes and Diamonds (Popiól i diament, 1958) as an artificial "war trilogy" (which could [...]
The Children Accuse
Dzieci oskarżają Poland, 1956, black and white, 10 minsThe second 'black series' ('czarna seria') film by Jerzy Hoffman and Edward Skórzewski seems to start in a more sedate fashion compared with the throat-grabbing immediacy of Look Out, Hooligans! (Uwaga chuligani!, 1955), in that it begins with a mother and daughter doing (Christmas?) [...]
Look Out, Hooligans!
Uwaga chuligani! Poland, 1955, black and white, 12 minsAlthough signs of a thaw could be discerned the previous year (Jerzy Hoffman and Edward Skórzewski's sternly moralistic lecture Are You Among Them?/Czy jesteś wśród nich? did at least acknowledge the existence of petty crime and other forms of antisocial behaviour), their second film Look [...]
The Struggles of František Vláčil
Anyone who's planning to visit Prague between now and the end of May might well be interested in the exhibition František Vláčil: Zápasy (or The Struggles of of František Vláčil), a multimedia tribute to the great Czech director of Marketa Lazarová (1967).Those of us trapped elsewhere will have to make do with its bilingual (Czech-English) [...]
Return to the Old Town
Powrót na Stare Miasto Poland, 1954, black and white/colour, 20 minsIn essence a documentary about the recreation of Warsaw's Old Town, all but destroyed during World War II, Jerzy Bossak's film has enough genuinely powerful images of the large-scale restoration and reconstruction process to compensate for the commentary's attempts at rewriting [...]
Brzozowa Street
Ulica Brzozowa Poland, 1947, black and white, 9 minsOne of the key documentaries of Poland's post-World War II pre-Stalinism era, Brzozowa Street takes its name and setting from one of the front lines of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 - just three years before the film was made. Although Warsaw itself (at least according to Jerzy Piórkowski's [...]
The Coal Mine
Kopalnia Poland, 1947, black and white, 10 minsMade the same year as Jerzy Bossak and Wacław Kaźmierczak's The Flood (Powódź), The Coal Mine is a similarly wordless study, this time of miners in action. Using high-contrast lighting, boldly-defined compositions and intensely, almost aggressively rhythmic editing, writer-director Natalia [...]
The Flood
Powódź Poland, 1947, black and white, 13 minsAlthough barely known outside Poland, Jerzy Bossak (1910-89) was one of the key figures in the development of Polish cinema, especially in the immediate postwar period when the industry was getting back on its feet after a near-total shutdown during World War II. In the 1930s, he had been a member [...]
Wajda news
I'm afraid there's some bad news about the British premiere of Andrzej Wajda's Katyń at BFI Southbank on April 22 - the screening's still going ahead, but Wajda himself won't be attending, as he's been prevented from travelling due to ill health. The organisers hope there'll be a replacement in the form of someone connected with the production, [...]
Home & Away
Not a post in tribute to the Australian soap opera, but an announcement about London's fifth Romanian Film Festival, running from Thursday 10 to Sunday 13 April. As with its Polish counterpart, it's been growing apace over the years, though this time it's as much to do with a surge in quality as any population increase. It's at the Curzon [...]