Toys
Toys takes a look at the circumstances which shaped the imaginations of today's generation of Polish artists and designers
The life of a child in Poland is very much the same as the life of other children around the world. A typical day revolves around his or her life at home and at school. Even in the socialist era, recreational time was a period of unbridled ease, unaffected by the poor quality of toys or even the lack thereof. The toys available to Polish children were rather different from the toys lavished upon youngsters in the West. Simple, cheaply made of inferior materials, or perchance a gift from abroad or replica of a western toy produced locally by craftsmen. Quite often these were toys made by the children themselves or a relative.
What has a greater impact on a child's development - a room full of expensive toys or perhaps no toys at all? Is a child's imagination stimulated to a greater extent by complex electronic inventions or, rather, a simple radio receiver the child has made on his or her own?
A comb and a few coins, an elastic band, a few bottle caps... Even the metal frame for beating rugs filled in for the monkey bars of the West was a source of recreation, social initiation and learning. It all marks a distinct anthropological link between the phenomenon of today's creative minds and the scarcity of toys growing up.
Child's play is a fundamental need of every civilization, particularly one that's wriggling out of the grasp of an authoritarian regime in an effort to maintain a sense of personal freedom and identity. Toys, directed by Andrzej Wolski, is a film about how Polish youngsters of the socialist era discovered independence and liberal thinking with a few twigs and some wire.
The heroes of Toys give their take on child's play during communism:
- Dorota Masłowska, novelist and playwright
... these children picked up the scraps and rubbish of the adults world... glass, paper, rocks, stray cats. And they created another world out of all this... At that time my friend had a huge shelving unit made out of cosmetics boxes from the west. When I talk about it today, about how we collected garbage and made trinkets and things out of it, I find it unbelievable.
- Lech Wałęsa, former President of Poland and Solidarity leader
In the countryside, life was tough. I was about ten years old, in those days we had religion in school. The priest said something inappropriate, I can't remember what it was, and I said: nooooooo. And then the priest...
- Andrzej Dudziński, graphic artist
At the American showcase, which travelled across Poland and had the most powerful impact on me in my childhood, there were toys that surpassed anything you could imagine. Some sort of machine gun for ping pong balls, such wonderful things that I'd only see in photographs. And I dreamed of these toys night after night.
Toys
Production: Adam Mickiewicz Institute, 2011
Direction: Andrzej Wolski, Screenplay: Andrzej Wolski, Stanisław Tym
The film is part of the Guide to the Poles - a series of documentary films produced within the framework of the International Cultural Programme of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council in 2011
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