Interview with a Polish Delegate on
Krzysztof Kieslowski and Polish Cinema
Based on what you have witnessed over the years, how would you compare the current state of the Polish film industry to what it was before?
There have not been significant changes. It is generally the same as it was twenty or forty years ago. Funding is from the state, just as before.
What about in terms of the content of the films?
The primary subject of today’s Polish films is that of contemporary life and how it has been affected by the social and political changes in Poland over the years. These changes have created a kind of revolution in the people’s behaviour and their way of thinking. So, contemporary Polish films are generally about the social, political and cultural transformations that occur in their everyday life because of these changes. There are not many variations in terms of topics or themes. Modern Polish cinema as a collective basically portrays a detailed depiction of modern Polish society. Over the last few years, there was a trend of historical movies being produced, but this is not an important trend.
I was wondering if Polish cinema has grown to become more optimistic because of its social and political changes. Unlike in Hong Kong, where its films, for a time, grew very pessimistic due to the 1997 hand-over, Poland has now become a democratic country.
It is interesting what you have said about Hong Kong and its social changes. Of course there have been changes in Poland. Polish films are more optimistic now. It is important for people involved in the higher art to remember that it is usually easier to achieve greater success with films based on drama, sometimes even sad and depressing situations, rather than other genres. To the Polish audiences who are watching these films, it always creates a more impressive emotional effect in spite of the subject matter. So sometimes, directors prefer to work with dramas and then build their creativity from there. Therefore, it is not always the case that because of the socio-economic background, that we choose to create what we do.
Who are the upcoming filmmakers in Poland? It seems Polish cinema isn’t as prominent in the international film circuit right now as it was before...
There is a definite change in the new generation of filmmakers. There are many interesting filmmakers in the industry now but I will just list a few. Krzysztof Zanussi is a really famous director who represents the older group of Polish filmmakers but he is still a really creative and prominent director. Then there is Krzysztof Krauze, a director who emerged amidst the old generation and the current generation of filmmakers, who is really popular in Europe right now and has gained numerous international awards. A movie of his that is really worth noting is Moj Nikifor (My Nikifor). The film is about the Polish primitivist painter Nikifor who remained unknown until after his death. It is really worth seeing the film as it provides a refreshing, new perspective to creation. You may come down to the embassy to borrow it for educational purposes if you wish.
Feliks Falk is another interesting filmmaker. His films are mainly social commentaries. Over the last few years, there were two movies made concerning the relations between Poland and China. One of the movies, Samowolka (A.W.O.L.), is about a pair of lovers living in the 19 th century. The action takes place during the year of the tiger, on the brink of the 20 th century. The main character is a Polish prisoner based in Russia who moves to China. There he meets a Chinese girl of whom he falls in love with, which sets forth the rest of the film. Their relationship, of course, is complicated because in those times it was forbidden for a Chinese woman to form relations such as this. The other of the two films is really quite funny. It is about a group of Chinese producers who come to Poland because they are making a film that requires their actors to have sad faces, which is very easy to find in Poland. A lot of the comedy arises from the relations between the Chinese crew and the Polish actors because of their vastly differing social backgrounds.
Another interesting director is Jan Jakub Kolski. His art form is completely different from everything else in current Polish cinema. He has a body of work that could be compared to (a Latin American literary writer, name unknown). Kolski tries to mold all his films around reality but with compositions which are completely unreal and poetic. Also, love is the most important of all things in his films. But it is not the kind of love that is simplistic, but rather a biblical kind of love that involves towering emotions and many complex levels of relationships between different people.
Now I will elaborate on some of the younger directors who try to create cinema based on contemporary Polish reality. Slawomir Fabicki is a very young director and his films concentrate on the lives of the people who live on the fringes of Polish society. A few years ago, he made a film called Meska Sprawa (A Man Thing) and this film was nominated for an Oscar. Filip Bajon is another director of this generation. He has made four or five films so far, all of them concerning the new Polish society after its time of transformation. His films can be classified as tragic-comedy. He is also a director really worth noting. He recently made a film entitled Fundacja (Foundation) and it is an incredibly realistic depiction of how modern Polish society is coping with its transformation in its everyday life. After the period of transformation, law and order was somewhat in place, but not completely. So many people took advantage of this and did a lot of bad things and got away with it because the new law of government is still not a fully functional one. Many artists use this situation to create comedy because it is funny to the people.
Do young Polish filmmakers today feel as if they are living under the shadow of Kieslowski? Do they feel like the foundation of Polish cinema has restricted the types of films they can make or the types of films which will be accepted in international film circuits, like in the case of Bergman in Switzerland?
Though it is not commonly voiced, almost all Polish filmmakers feel like they are unable to escape the shadow of Kieslowski’s works. Even Zanussi, who was once part of the same cinematic movement as Kieslowski, the ‘Cinema of Moral Anxiety’, feels the weight of Kieslowski’s shadow. In Poland, there is a kind of common tendency, sort of a Polish nature, to live in contrast to their master. So it is possible to notice a sort of struggle in the young filmmakers of today to get out of the master’s shadow. But all the directors can’t admit that they’re just not as good as the master. (laughs)
What was Kieslowski like as a person?
I did not know him personally though we are friendly and have met a few times, so I will try to answer this question based on what I have read and from various conversations I’ve had with him. He had a very mathematical way of thinking. Everything was always in order. He was also very hardworking and concentrated and was able to make many films as a result of that. That’s the main difference between him and many other Poles because many of us have very little order and are very lazy. Polish people tend to prefer improvisation, but he is completely different. Everything was planned on paper. Perhaps he had kind of chess-player’s mentality, always thinking a few steps forward.
In terms of his social life, he was actually quite a fun person though he is commonly seen as quite a pessimist. There was a very good documentary which was made on him called I’m So-So.
Yes, it is quite hard to find that one on video or DVD.
Sadly, yes. But I believe we also have that in our collection.
There have been movies made on Kieslowski’s screenplays even after his passing though they aren’t very good in my opinion. Those include Heaven and L’Enfer (Hell). There is also a film by his son-in-law called Death Hurts (title was not translated clearly and might conflict with the actual title intended) which is about a love triangle between a man, a woman and her lover. Sadly that movie is also not so good.
Kieslowski and his lawyer friend Krzysztof Piesiewicz came up with an idea for a new trilogy of films based on Heaven, Hell and Purgatory before Kieslowski passed away. Heaven and Hell have already been made into films, but will Purgatory be made?
No, we don’t think so. Piesiewicz, as you said, is a lawyer. Although these days we can consider him as a professional screenwriter, he’s not really very good without Kieslowski.
Was Purgatory written when Kieslowski was alive?
It was an idea that was not developed into a script.
Why did Kieslowski move to France to make the Three Colors trilogy?
He couldn’t get enough funding from Poland so he looked to France for money. In France, there were producers who were willing to fund his project. He never moved to France. He lived in Berlin, Denmark and France while shooting the project, but he never left Poland for good. It is important to note in the exhibition that he has frequently referred to himself as a Polish artist.
Kieslowski always emphasizes on the fact that his films are never biographical. Yet it is possible to find so many parallels between his own life and his own experiences and his films.
This always occurs when an artist takes interest in the meaning of existence. It is impossible for him to remove himself from his own experiences to create work which allows him to ponder over philosophical questions.
It is quite interesting that he said, upon completing the Three Colors trilogy, he’d never make another film. No one in Poland believed him. But after two years, he passed away. Some speculated that Kieslowski probably knew that the end was nearing for him. It is an interesting contrast to the other who had named him as a kind of God, deciding who lives or dies in his films. Like in Blind Chance, the fate of a man is shown from three perspectives. It all starts with the man running after a train, and respectively, in each of the perspectives, he catches the train, misses the train, or is caught by the police. The movie then follows this man as he journeys through three different fates spawned from the singular situation he faced on whether or not he catches the train. But in the end of the film, there is a plane crash and the man dies. It’s as if it doesn’t matter what you do because everything has been predestined. (laughs) That’s Kieslowski.
Around the time of the production of Blind Chance, it was a difficult time for the Polish film industry because Poland was still a communist state. Films such as Blind Chance, of which is metaphysical, weren’t allowed to be screened. So it wasn’t shown only until a few years later when Poland became democratic that it was allowed to be screened.
Kieslowski made a film he didn’t really like which was hidden for many years. It is called Short Working Day and it was shot for Polish television. It is not really good, and he’s quite embarrassed of it perhaps because Kieslowski began to make the transition into his metaphysical dramas.
The really important thing about Kieslowski is his art is based on really important Christian traditions. Kieslowski himself never identified with any religion. He wasn’t involved in church life. But he grew up in a Catholic family, so all the sacraments important to the Catholic religion were always important to him. We see memories of his baptism and communion in the exhibition as well. His life does not confirm an identification to Christianity, but his art has always been influenced in some way by Christianity.
Polish cinema does not seem to be finding the recognition it should anymore. Why is that?
This is a trend in all countries. Poland was interesting in the international film circuit when it was under communist control, but now that we’ve moved on into democracy, it seems we’re not as interesting to the world anymore. Also, the domination of Hollywood cinema is everywhere. It’s here in Asia, in Europe, in Poland as well.
Are Poles supportive of their own film industry like it is in Korean now? Or is it like us here in Singapore, where Singaporeans snicker at the existence of yet another local film?
We’ve got a similar situation as you. (laughs) Polish films, or at least artistic Polish films, are only popular with exclusive intellectual societies or film clubs and universities.
That’s quite sad.
Yes, it is.
Written by: Athalia Ho Meixi & Lim Lung Chieh
* The interviewee, Mieczyslaw Kuzmicki, is the director of the Museum of Cinematography in Lodz, Poland. The museum oversees the archival of Polish films and also the documentation of the lives of Polish filmmakers. |
