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Difficult period of the turn | Artistic cinema of the nineties | Masters of the cimena | Fashionable and unfashionable topics

A turn of a decade is not a very clear turning point in the life of the cinema. As years go by technical capacity changes, young actors become popular, and young directors attempt to present new phenomena in a new way. However these processes are taking place gradually. But the turn of 1989/90 had to be stormy in Polish cinema: this was when communism in Poland collapsed. Filmmakers no longer had to face restrictions on freedom of creation, but new problems appeared - problems brought by the free market: fighting for viewers, and competition. This process actually began even earlier, during the 1980's.

During the last ten years of their rule, the communist authorities allowed cinemas to show American films almost without limitations. In earlier years, there had always been very few American films shown in Poland. The younger audience focused its interest on these films. The middle-aged and older generations almost stopped going to cinemas during the difficult period of the last decade. Polish film found itself in a vacuum. At the beginning of the 1990's Polish films were hardly present in cinemas. Films were being released but after a few days (sometimes even the day after the opening night) they disappeared from cinema screens, in order to make space for American films. However, Polish films were still being produced. Their production was financed by state subsidies and by public television. A few years later, additional funding came from the Canal+ television network, and production companies began to join in. The major financial success of "Ogniem i mieczem / By Fire And Sword" (a historic picture which is set during the 17th century, and is based on a novel which for a number of generations has been one of the favourite books read by Poles) has opened the opportunity of financing film production by banks. All this happened during the second half of the 1990's.

The sudden explosion of freedom at the beginning of this decade, in cinema understood as an artistic phenomenon, has taken a surprising form. Although, looking back in time, such a reaction seems understandable. However, there was a delay before the whole hopelessness of the preceding decade poured onto the cinema screens. After martial law (declared on 13 December 1981) was rescinded (it lasted nineteen months and its objective was to delegalise and to destroy the "Solidarity" trade union which aimed at democratic change of the Polish political system), the atmosphere was still heavy, the difficulties of the daily life were enormous and it seemed that there was no hope for the status quo to ever change. Polish cinema after the political turning point of 1989 was dominated by a nihilistic, dark vision of man. Older artists, who knew that it would be difficult to rebuild their communication with the audience, remained silent during that time. This specific generation gap was filled by new artists. A lot of unsuccessful films were made. This difficult period was summarised by a question asked by a distinguished Polish film director, Wojciech Marczewski. He asked this question during the Forum of Filmmakers which took place in Gdynia during the Polish Film Festival in 1991. The question was: "Friends did you really HAVE to make all these films?"

Marczewski himself directed in 1990 (after nine years of remaining silent) the only outstanding film of that period. It was titled "Ucieczka z kina 'Wolność' / Escape From The 'Liberty' Cinema". The story takes place during the times of the communist regime and the main character is a censor. He is a strange censor, at least not a typical one: in the past he was a literary critic, maybe even a poet. He is gifted with somewhat perverse and slightly cynical intelligence. He is a sceptic with a sense of personal defeat. He tries to escape into alcohol.

The period of downfall in Polish cinema and the period of disbelief of the audience that Polish films can interest them was ended in 1992 by a film directed by Władysław Pasikowski "Psy / Dogs". This film is not however about "man's best friends", "dogs" was a slang name for police (known as militia) during the communist regime. This film is not at all an accusation of the police of communist times. Critics were shocked: three years after the collapse of communism, a young director showed the most hated type of policeman - a secret police officer - as a man of strong character, aware of his value, a person with both personal courage and a very attractive form of intelligence expressed in the ability to ridicule himself. The film was very well made - it received five awards at the Polish Film Festival - but most of all it was accepted by the audience. To be exact - by the young audience, who made it possible for Polish actors (Cezary Pazura and Bogusław Linda) to become idols of the young generation (until then such stardom was reserved for actors of American films). The attractive features of "Dogs" seemed obvious. It is an action movie, the first successful "copy" of the American cinema. Attractive dialogues consisted of the language used on the streets, and the main character responded to a hidden desire for personal courage. Such courage seemed particularly valuable during the first few years of the new reality. There is, however, one scene in this film which appalled the adult section of the audience. Policemen - ex secret police officers - make a parody of an event that took place during the bloody pacification of a workers' protest (in 1970 in Gdynia). During the pacification, workers carried a body of their colleague killed by police. Andrzej Wajda used this scene in his 1981 film "Człowiek z żelaza / Man of Iron". Why did Pasikowski decide to introduce such a scene to his film? Why did young people accept it? Would it be enough to explain this if we were to refer to psychological explanations: i.e. that iconoclastic (rebellious) tendencies are characteristic to every young generation? This could, however, be a topic for a separate study.

"Dogs" by Pasikowski was the film that started the new way of thinking about Polish cinema, a way of thinking which before had been unfamiliar to Polish filmmakers: films were to become commercial goods, goods which were supposed to make profits. During the years that followed, commercial cinema strengthened its position but - fortunately - it did not mean that films with artistic ambitions disappeared.


During the last ten years Jan Jakub Kolski has been one of the most important film directors with artistic ambitions. Similar to Władysław Pasikowski, Jan Jakub Kolski debuted after 1989. Apart from this, the two directors represent completely different personalities. Both of them were to express their fields of interest very clearly. In the case of Pasikowski it is still (with exception of one film) action movies, and in the case of Kolski it is a mythical vision of a village, built on a realistic foundation (Kolski spent his childhood in a village).

A film by Kolski titled "Jańcio Wodnik / Johnny, The Aquarius" (1993) was shown in Polish cinemas soon after "Dogs". It was also a film which won the support of the audience, although it was a different audience, a smaller one. Enthusiasts of this film were recruited from among young people, but these were the people who were more interested in an artistic vision of the director than in the actual story. The condition of establishing contact with this audience is originality, novelty, even strangeness of aesthetic proposals. "Johnny, The Aquarius" is a film phantasmagoria which had no predecessors and has no imitators in Polish cinema. It would actually be quite difficult to identify either predecessors or imitators in other countries.

During the succeeding years Kolski directed more films stories of which take place in similar scenery and which maintain a similar stylistics: "Cudowne miejsce / A Miraculous Place" (1994), "Szabla od Komendanta / The Sabre from the Commander" (1995), "Grający z talerza / Playing From A Plate" (1995). His latest film, "Historia kina w Popielawach / History Of The Cinema In Popielawy" (1998) is the most mature and the most disciplined of Kolski's films. The film tells the history of the cinema in general - but this version of history is as fantastic as all the other films of this director. The cinema was invented - in Kolski's film - over a hundred years ago in the village of Popielawy. It was invented by a village blacksmith. He used a horse gear to move images painted on a fish air-bladder. Years go by, generations change and the passion for cinema remains in that family as a dream of a more interesting world. This passion ruins the real lives of the dreamers. It is a very personal film (Kolski comes from a family which has been connected with the cinema for three generations). It also refers to the history of Poland, it gives a picture of changing morality. In the film there are of course fantastic ideas so typical to Kolski (a coachman freezes together with his horse and becomes an ice sculpture only to - of course - defrost and come back to life).

Certainly the most important artistic phenomenon of the cinema in the mid-nineties were the films directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski: "Podwójne życie Weroniki / The Double Life Of Veronique", "Niebieski / Blue", "Biały / White", "Czerwony / Red", all under a common title "Trzy kolory / Three Colours". These films were co-produced with France (from the Polish side they were produced by Studio "Tor", managed by Krzysztof Zanussi). "The Double Life Of Veronique" and "White" are the only films with some of the events taking place in Poland but Kieślowski remained a truly Polish film director, although towards the end of his life he made most of his films abroad. He himself said: "I make films abroad but I do not live in any of these countries and I do not want to live in them. I live in Poland simply because I understand perfectly well everything that happens here. For example, when I hear an argument on a street I do not have to hear every word that is being said. I understand the intentions of the people who argue and I know what they are arguing about. All this is clear to me. That is why I never actually left Poland and I remain living here." However, Kieślowski also added: "It seems to me that when you tell a story, you should look at it in such a way that would make it possible to find its individual aspect and at the same time to identify a very wide spectrum which encompasses all people. In other words, it is important to make films about things that are important to every person in the world. Every person in the world cares about loneliness, every person in the world cares about love, every person in the world cares about the lack of love. Every person." It is exactly what Kieślowski told us about in his films.

Now, after years, when we know how Krzysztof Kieślowski lived and how he died, "The Double Life Of Veronique" gets a new, disturbing meaning. Veronique, a young singer living in Poland, suffers from a heart disease but she does not want to give up her art, and she dies during a concert. Veronique from France is different, although somehow she is the same, a twin version or an incarnation of Polish Veronique. She chooses a different solution: she stops to sing in order to live. In the life and fate of Kieślowski there was something from that dilemma, although it was somehow reversed by the mysterious Great Ironist. The years of working abroad were the most intensive period of creation in Krzysztof Kieslowski's life. Not long before his death he said: "I have no energy any more. Right now, to tell you the truth I have no energy at all." He died after a heart operation. He did not have the time to carry out the alternative solution from "The Double Life Of Veronique", the solution he did consider as a chance for himself. He intended to stop making films. He said: "What will I do? I will live, I will read, I will probably do a little writing. However, in my case it is not so important to know what I will do. It is important for me to know what I will not do. I know that for certain I will not make films." This part of Kieślowski's expectations came true but in a tragic way.

In "Blue", the most tragic of all films directed by Kieślowski a young woman, a composer's wife who lost her husband and her daughter in a car accident, says to her mother: "From now on I will do what I want to do, that is nothing". After the shock of losing her family she moves to a busy district in the city centre, she sinks into the crowd. Is she trying to find a desert, to experience a desert in the heart of a huge metropolis? Love, memories, friends, things, even art (at the beginning Julia wants to destroy an unfinished composition of her husband) are not worth anything if the destination of a man is - who knows - maybe nonentity? A Hymn to Love heard at the end of the film (composed by Zbigniew Preisner, a Polish composer, with the words of the Letter of Paul to Corinthians) at this point truly has a very bitter meaning.

Although it did not have the same depth as the films of Krzysztof Kieślowski, Polish artistic cinema of the last decade did touch existential problems. The films of Andrzej Kondratiuk were the most original and the most successful in an artistic sense. He is a unique artist, with ostentation he refuses to accept the fact that the cinema is becoming more and commercial. During the 1990's he directed two films and he financed their production. In both films he spoke mainly about himself. These were: "Wrzeciono Czasu / Spinning Wheel Of Time" and "Słoneczny zegar / The Sundial". "About himself" as is the case of all the films directed by Kondratiuk has a deeper meaning that it may appear. Years ago Kondratiuk bought a house located just outside a village, overlooking a stream, and he moved there almost for good. In that house he makes his films, telling stories about himself and his wife - Iga Cembrzyńska (an actress). In his earlier films Kondratiuk spoke also about his parents and his brother. He mixes reality with fiction, he takes his viewers behind the scene and shows how he works, and sometimes he adds neighbours or guests. He looks closely at plants and household animals. He watches changes that take place at different times of the day and at different times of the year. By showing this kind of existence he actually talks about something else: about the immense loneliness of a man against the world and the universe, about man's fear of the monster of the inevitability of everything coming to an end.

A young director, Dorota Kędzierzawska brought her original talent, and her own view of reality into the Polish cinema of this decade. Her film "Wrony / Crows" was the artistic event of the middle of this decade. This film went against everything that was present and beginning to appear in Polish cinema at the time. Kędzierzawska, when telling a story of the kidnapping of a small child by a ten years old girl (the starting point for the screenplay was a true story) showed the reality seen through the eyes of that very girl. She comes from the low end of society but she is rich although she does not realise it - her wealth is the whole charm of the world. Children were the main characters of this story, they were being watched by the sensitive eye of the camera. Beautiful photography by Artur Reinhart was the main attraction of the film. It showed the beauty of the old city and of the sea. It would seem that such a film would go unnoticed. This however is a confirmation of the truth that real values do not disappear - the film was highly valued by the audience, by critics and by juries at a number of festivals.

"Nic / Nothing", another film by Dorota Kędzierzawska four years after "Wrony" turned out to be completely different but just as exceptional. It is a dark, gloomy picture of helplessness of a young woman who faced a trial too hard for her to bear. This film, similar to "Crows", became an artistic event. In case of "Nothing" the starting point for the screenplay was also a true story: a young woman, a mother of a number of small children, helpless and resourceless, strangled her new-born baby. Similar cases happen from time to time but this case were exceptional. The woman concealed her pregnancy from her husband. She claimed that she was ill, she explained her changed figure by the presence of a growing tumour. She was afraid to admit that she was pregnant because her husband threatened to leave her if she were to have another baby. Kedzierzawska showed the tragedy of deepest loneliness, it did not matter that the woman had a family. "Nothing" in the title of the film is the response given by this young woman during a court case when she was asked what could she say to defend herself. People who did not help her when she needed help are not being accused at the trial, they are in court only as witnesses...

Another new phenomenon in Polish cinema is the phenomenon of actors debuting as film directors. During the 1990's Jerzy Stuhr, a distinguished actor, has joined the group of film directors who make films of artistic value. Many years ago Stuhr co-operated with Krzysztof Kieślowski and his input to films made by Kieślowski was greater than just carrying out tasks given to him as an actor. Jerzy Stuhr has already directed three films: "Spis cudzołożnic / The Register Of Adulteresses", "Historie miłosne / Love Stories", "Tydzień z życia mężczyzny / A Week In The Life Of A Man". Krystyna Janda debuted as a film director by making her first film - "Pestka / Pip" showed in 1995. Marek Kondrat, who in 1999 directed "Prawo ojca / The Father's Right" is yet another actor turned film director.


The masters of film direction: Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi and Kazimierz Kutz, did make films during the last decade. During that time Andrzej Wajda directed five films. He directed "Pierścionek z orlem w koronie / The Ring With A Crowned Eagle", "Nastazja / Nastassja", "Wielki Tydzień / Holy Week", "Panna Nikt / Miss Nobody". He closed the decade with a huge success of his film version of the national epic by Adam Mickiewicz - "Pan Tadeusz".

Today the director considers "The Ring With A Crowned Eagle" his mistake. The story of this film takes place in 1945. This return to the period between war and peace, to dilemmas of faithfulness and treachery, was two generations late. The film did not raise the interest of the audience. "Nastassja" is connected with Wajda's interest in the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and in the Japanese theatre. In this unique adaptation of "Idiot" by Dostoyevsky the double role of Nastassja and Myshkin is played by an onnagata, a type of Japanese actor. In the classical Japanese theatre onnagata actors play female roles. In "Holy Week" Wajda came back to the tragedy of Jews during the last world war. He touched the sensitive issue of Polish anti-Semitism. This film was an adaptation of a short story by a remarkable Polish writer, Jerzy Andrzejewski (he was also the author of the novel on which Wajda's "Popiół i diament / Ashes And Diamond" was based). The short story was written during the Second World War, right after the tragedy of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The audience did not take notice of this film and this fact deepened Wajda's conviction that he had lost contact with viewers. He attempted to regain this contact by filming a popular contemporary novel written by Tomek Tryzna, "Miss Nobody". The main characters of both the film and the novel are fifteen years old girls. In this surprising attempt to enter the world of teenagers the director was trying to see the diversification and contrasts of today through their eyes. The hope that in this film he would be able to show something more than just the story turned out to be an illusion.

It was "Pan Tadeusz" that returned his audience to Wajda, an audience greater than anybody might have expected, an audience of more than six million people. The cinema can reveal hidden levels of subconsciousness, even mass subconsciousness. Andrzej Wajda was successful in doing that more than once. "Pan Tadeusz" was yet another successful attempt. A few years ago Wajda said in one of his interviews, thinking of martial law (imposed by the communist regime in 1981): "At that time Poland broke into pieces and until now it cannot put itself together." The filming of "Pan Tadeusz" turned out to be of these events in our culture that brings Poles together. "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz is a national epic written in 1834. It gives a superb picture of the residents of an early 19th century nobleman's manor-house and of the residents of a yeomen's settlement. It also gives a picture of a nation spirited by the hope of regaining independence, the hope that Napoleon deluded Poles with. "Pan Tadeusz", this pillar of national culture interpreted by Wajda enchanted the Polish audience. In the epic poem by Mickiewicz, a mythical picture of, as the poet says - "the country of his childhood years" - is mixed with bitter truth about Poles. Wajda was also able to extract other important elements of the original text: its irony, its humour and its comic aspects.

The financial success of "Pan Tadeusz" was preceded by a similar success of a film version of "By Fire And Sword" shown in cinemas a year earlier. This film was directed by Jerzy Hoffman, who had to wait for a change of the political system in order to be able to film the first part of "Trylogia / Trilogy" written by Henryk Sienkiewicz (many years ago Hoffman filmed part two - "Potop / The Deluge" and part three - "Pan Wołodyjowski". "Trilogy" by Henryk Sienkiewicz is a historic fresco which is set during the 17th century. In its fiction level "Trilogy" is a novel of romance and adventure. Its first part concerns a war between Poland and rebellious Ukraine (which at that time was a part of Poland). During the communist times that subject was "not politically correct". Today, the audience received the film with enthusiasm.

In 2000 Andrzej Wajda received an Oscar for his accomplishments as a film director. When we think about this award, we should also remember that in 1994 Polish specialists working with Steven Spielberg on "Schindler's List" received three Oscars. "Schindler's List" was filmed in Poland with the co-operation of Polish artists. Oscars were awarded to Allan Starski for scenography, Ewa Braun for decorations, and Janusz Kamiński, a Polish director of photography working in the USA.


A striking matter, an issue worth noting is the unwillingness of filmmakers to "settle accounts" on the screen with the times of communism. The dreams at the end of the 1980's that the cinema in free Poland will finally "demonstrate" and "accuse" turned out to be an illusion. Only two such films were produced, and only one was a success. It was "Śmierć jak kromka chleba / Death As A Slice Of Bread" filmed by Kazimierz Kutz. The director, a person who knows Slask really well, reconstructed on the silver screen the greatest tragedy of martial law - the bloody pacification of one of the Slask coal mines. The film was both valuable and moving, but its life in cinemas was short and quiet.

The times of the communist regime are becoming a long gone past. For young filmmakers they are history, for directors in their sixties they are their "country of childhood years". Krzysztof Zanussi went back to these years in his film titled "Cwał / In Full Gallop". The trump card of this film is the aunt of the main character, a ten years old boy. The aunt is both a tragic and a comic figure (played by Maja Komorowska, a great actress). The boy's aunt, a person who before the war belonged to the social elite, and after the change of the political system in 1945 had to save herself by an ingenious lie, did not lose her old - one would like to say - uhlan's spirit (in the pre-war Poland that was a synonym of a kind of bravado). Horses played an important role in this film. Both the boy and his aunt loved horses, although passion for horses was not well perceived by the socialist authorities as according to them it was "lordly". Horses are still loved by Poles and this might actually have been one of the reasons why this film was watched by so many people.

However, the truly mass audience, young audience of course, was won by commercial films. After "Dogs" it was the turn for wolves (Polish - wilki), to be exact for young wolves (a literal translation of the Polish title) "Młode wilki / Fast Lane". This film was directed by a young cameraman Jarosław Żamojda and it was his debut as a film director. The young wolves in this film - i.e. single beasts of prey - are boys who have just graduated from secondary schools and who smuggle stolen cars. They do it because they have come to the conclusion that "an intelligent person' has to have money. This very popular film was evidently commercial and it presented some shocking sociological discoveries. There was, however, some truth in these discoveries. Nobody after Żamojda has presented such an extreme vision of the young generation.

The world of crime has been a fashionable topic during the last few years. Polish filmmakers found the way to have some fun with this topic. The main character of two comedies directed by Juliusz Machulski: "Kiler" and "Kilerów dwóch / Two Kilers", is not, what might seem obvious, a killer - a professional assassin. He is a taxi driver, who is pulled into a criminal scandal because of his last name. Jurek Kiler a nice "buddy" who is able to outsmart the mafia (which itself is not presented too seriously), has become a favourite of the public.

Towards the end of the last decade a few young directors appeared. They made some films that were modest but give hope for the future. Michal Rosa, awarded for his debut - "Gorący czwartek / Hot Thursday", has directed his second film - "Farba / Paint". While remaining an artist, Rosa looks at the world a bit like a sociologist, and a bit like a moralist. The young people presented in his films will never become "young wolves", although they may try to steal (just like the boys from "Hot Thursday") or to cheat to make some money (like the couple from "Paint"). They have too much of something: internal restraints? - and too little of something else: determination, recklessness to become "wolf-like"?

Non-commercial Polish cinema of value is interested mainly in people placed somewhere in the middle - not in "wolves" from rich homes, with beautiful cars in their garages - and not in "sheep" from shelters for the homeless. Young Polish directors of ambitious films dealing with contemporary issues are closer to the European rather than to the American filmmakers in their search for characters and topics. And regardless of the fact that we often hear concerns that the Polish cinema is becoming of a secondary nature by trying to copy the American cinema, the films made by young directors give us hope that this tendency will change. It should be worth waiting for the next film directed by Urszula Urbaniak. In "Torowisko / The Junction" she revealed a very valuable feature: the ability to get under the skin of her characters, to demonstrate solidarity with these characters - young girls from a small town, girls (as some might say) waiting for their lives to begin. We should wait patiently for the next film directed by Paweł Łoziński. After his debut as a director of feature films - "Kratka / Grate" made in 1996, he is looking for his own solutions by attempting to make feature films from documentary observation of real life (a documentary: "Taka historia / A Just So Story"). Also Krzysztof Krauze, who directed the moving "Dług / The Debt" in 1999, should not disappoint us with his future productions.

Beside "Pan Tadeusz" by Andrzej Wajda "The Debt" was the greatest event of the 1999/2000 season in Polish cinema. Krzysztof Krauze was the first to show on the screen, with no commercial shortcuts, the mechanisms of functioning of the new violence and the new form of helplessness in their full horror. He showed that there must be something wrong with the State: it exists somehow just for itself, it refuses to have more and more obligations towards its citizens. There also must be something wrong with the law: it exists but there is no justice, and when you begin to look for justice yourself, you will be punished. There must be something wrong with society: social Darwinism destroys it in front of our eyes, and probably forever. There must be something wrong with our values: for the first time nobody knows what should be the answer to the fundamental question: how to live your life.

"The Debt": two young men from "white-collar families" want to start up a business. They count on getting a bank loan but it turns out that they cannot. At that point by coincidence they meet an ex-neighbour of one of them. He is their age and he presents himself as a businessman. He offers to organise a guarantee required by the bank, of course he expects to receive an adequate commission. During the next meeting the commission increases and when the two partners change their minds the businessman says that he already bore some costs. If they do not pay, the debt will increase by 1000 US Dollars every day. They pay but what they hear is that the dollars given by them were forged (although they were not). A piece of land taken away from one of the victims (he is threatened with a gun and forced to sign it over to their tormentor) does not resolve the problem as by then the debt has increased to an astronomical figure. When the victims notify a prosecutor, she says that in fact she can do nothing - all she can do is to call the oppressor to her office and reprimand him. In the meantime his demands escalate - he comes with hired gangsters and he says that he wants to get back what is his...

In this story - we should add that it is based on a true story - there is nothing schematic, and at the same time it includes everything. There are portraits of decent people, who when attempting to function under new conditions, have to accept the fact that a "commission" for an "organised' guarantee is something obvious. These people are helpless when they are faced with deceit and violence. The film presents a picture of the personality of the blackmailer - it is not possible to negotiate with him because he has only one objective: to take everything away from his victim. There is also a picture of the State which refuses to carry out its obligation to protect the victims, and at the same time maintains the right to apply repression if a victim tries to protect himself using the methods imposed on him by his tormentor.

For the first time during the last decade, both the viewers and the critics were convinced that this is the first Polish film which - similar to the impact it had on the Polish audience - must impress viewers in other countries. We were astonished to find out that this is not the case. "Dług" was rejected from the foreign festivals for which it was proposed. We were surprised - and we did not understand.

The absence of the Polish cinema in the world is a problem we find particularly distressing. For many years Polish films were known in many countries so it is not easy to accept that this has changed. It is especially difficult to understand why this is happening. We cannot compete with American films, that is clear. At the same time it is also clear that not all Polish films deserve attention, even inside Poland. However, the same applies to every cinematography. It is not easy to find an answer to the question, why the best Polish films are not able to make their presence in Europe. Fluctuations of popularity, an evolution of tastes and expectations, changing fashions? The future will bring the answer.

Author: Bożena Janicka, 2001.

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