Re: PWA: Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:16 am
Well, I've watched the bulk of the Jacek Bławut box - everything pre-2000, with three more to go.
He was the dark horse of PWA's line-up in that I knew next to nothing about him other than that he's also a cinematographer - even PWA's own site still hasn't got round to translating the relevant page, and I couldn't find anything useful anywhere else. His career trajectory from 1980-96 (all I've watched so far) sees him shifting from overwhelmingly visual, often wordless pieces (he's often his own DOP) to more outwardly conventional talking-heads films where the subject is far more important than the style.
Quick notes on the films:
(Without Title) ((Bez tytułu, 1980, 4 mins): This film-school exercise is exactly the kind of thing you'd expect a cinematographer-turning-director to produce. Largely set in an underground passageway, it crams in references to Bławut's favourite films: an empty pram bounces down the steps, while two men carry a mirror-fronted wardrobe (the mirror deliberately reflects the film crew towards the end). The most beautiful sequence is a step-printed fantasy on a theme of pigeon flight, which harks back to some of the work of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson.
View (Widok, 1984, 9 mins): Bławut's wordless directorial debut is still very much a cinematographer's film, creating bizarrely haunting images out of ravaged industrial landscapes: pylons stud the horizon while open-cast mining scars the hillside and spurts black showers of coal. If it tends towards the didactic at times - a daisy is scooped up by the machinery, a time-lapse flower peeks through the earth as though defying man's dominion over it - that's probably a side-effect of it being commissioned as a propaganda film by the Department of Environmental Protection and Water Management. But it's greatly to Bławut's credit that this is mostly not obvious at all.
A Slide to the Sky (Ślizgiem do nieba, 1985, 15 mins): Still very much a cinematographer's film (Bławut is his own DOP), this portrait of multiple world water-sports champion Waldemar Marszałek keeps talk to a minimum, though an opening reminiscence about a near-death moments give Bławut an excuse for near-abstract images of boats against alarmingly orange light. (Orange is very much the dominant colour, as Marszałek sports it throughout). When Bławut shows us an actual race, he doesn't seem interested in its actual progress so much as in turning his shots into meditations on speed and fragility: his telephoto lens foreshortens the high-speed power-boats, making them look like giant manned tiddlywinks bouncing on the surface of the water, and about as robust.
Lump of Sugar (Kostka cukru, 1986, 9 mins): This fuses the themes of the two previous films, in that it's both a portrait of sportsmen and a wordless meditation on man's ruthless exploitation of the natural world - in this case horses. Bribed with sugar (hence the title), and fetlocks tightly bound to cushion impact, they're paraded in front of crowds and forced to race each other for little apparent benefit to themselves. The film features plenty of conventional racing footage, including low-angle shots of horses jumping over hedges and brooks en masse (often in step-printed slow-motion, to emphasise the action), but Bławut stays behind to show things television broadcasters shy away from: horses missing the target and collapsing on the ground, their faces slapped to get them to stagger to their feet, examined by vets and put down there and then if they're judged unsalvageable. (This last sequence takes place behind a green sheet, to shield the sight from the public, though Bławut doesn't give us that luxury). If it's not as gory as Georges Franju's Le Sang des Bêtes (the kills are distressingly clean, in fact), there's a similar implied anger about the way we unthinkingly exploit and degrade these magnificent creatures for such trivial ends.
Skalski's Circus (Cyrk Skalskiego, 1986, 21 mins) and I Was A Wehrmacht General (Byłem generałem Wehrmachtu, 1988, 18 mins): These are broadly similar, so I've lumped them together - essentially, they feature the straight-to-camera reminiscences of legendary World War II fighter ace Stanisław Skalski and shipbuilding expert turned underground resistance hero Kazimierz Leski. In both cases their memories are illustrated with impressionistic images - in Skalski's case step-printed quasi-slow-motion footage of various WWII dogfights, while in the Leski film they've become more stylised: a particularly striking effect is of a naked prisoner standing in a cell, his back to the camera, having a tub of cold water thrown over him. The cell is lit by daylight, and then Bławut cuts to exactly the same setup and action, only at night and lit artificially. Then day again, then night, getting faster and faster - a very effective way of conveying prisoner abuse over a period of time that I don't think I've come across before.
The Abnormals (Nienormalni, 1990, 75 mins): The set's longest film is also the pivotal one in Bławut's career - it's when he abandoned highly stylised images in favour of observational fly-on-the-wall techniques. What this loses in visual distinction it gains immeasurably in terms of bringing the subject across - the whole point of the mentally disabled teenagers featured in the film is that they're actually completely normal in their various needs and desires, and a treatment that emphasises a sense of "otherness" (as in Bławut's previous films) would have done them and the film a severe disservice. I found it so engrossing that the 75 minutes flew by - there's a loose structure (a music teacher trying to get them to play something coherent in a makeshift orchestra), but the most memorable parts of the film come between those scenes, often in almost throwaway moments. Some of these hint at the difficulties the teenagers face in the outside world, such as a brief sequence in which one of them goes to a dance, takes a girl's hand, kisses it, and in the next shot is roughly hustled outside by two other boys.
Rugged Souls (Rogate dusze, 1996, 57 mins): For me, this study of members of the French Foreign Legion was less successful, at least partly because of the ruinous decision to present every non-Polish interview with an obtrusive Polish voiceover translation. (This must be especially intolerable if you're French, the language most of the original interviews seem to be in - French subtitles are supplied, but shouldn't be necessary!). This creates an unnecessary distancing effect (precisely the kind of distancing that wasn't present in The Abnormals) and precludes full engagement - though when the film focuses on Polish Legionnaire Mariusz, who lost a leg in Yugoslavia, the film gives a hint of what it might have been if the treatment of the other interviewees had been more sensitive. Mariusz' story is interspersed with that of veteran Legionnaires, who still feel more loyal to the Foreign Legion and their comrades there than their family or country.
More later - I'll try to watch the remaining three films today.
He was the dark horse of PWA's line-up in that I knew next to nothing about him other than that he's also a cinematographer - even PWA's own site still hasn't got round to translating the relevant page, and I couldn't find anything useful anywhere else. His career trajectory from 1980-96 (all I've watched so far) sees him shifting from overwhelmingly visual, often wordless pieces (he's often his own DOP) to more outwardly conventional talking-heads films where the subject is far more important than the style.
Quick notes on the films:
(Without Title) ((Bez tytułu, 1980, 4 mins): This film-school exercise is exactly the kind of thing you'd expect a cinematographer-turning-director to produce. Largely set in an underground passageway, it crams in references to Bławut's favourite films: an empty pram bounces down the steps, while two men carry a mirror-fronted wardrobe (the mirror deliberately reflects the film crew towards the end). The most beautiful sequence is a step-printed fantasy on a theme of pigeon flight, which harks back to some of the work of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson.
View (Widok, 1984, 9 mins): Bławut's wordless directorial debut is still very much a cinematographer's film, creating bizarrely haunting images out of ravaged industrial landscapes: pylons stud the horizon while open-cast mining scars the hillside and spurts black showers of coal. If it tends towards the didactic at times - a daisy is scooped up by the machinery, a time-lapse flower peeks through the earth as though defying man's dominion over it - that's probably a side-effect of it being commissioned as a propaganda film by the Department of Environmental Protection and Water Management. But it's greatly to Bławut's credit that this is mostly not obvious at all.
A Slide to the Sky (Ślizgiem do nieba, 1985, 15 mins): Still very much a cinematographer's film (Bławut is his own DOP), this portrait of multiple world water-sports champion Waldemar Marszałek keeps talk to a minimum, though an opening reminiscence about a near-death moments give Bławut an excuse for near-abstract images of boats against alarmingly orange light. (Orange is very much the dominant colour, as Marszałek sports it throughout). When Bławut shows us an actual race, he doesn't seem interested in its actual progress so much as in turning his shots into meditations on speed and fragility: his telephoto lens foreshortens the high-speed power-boats, making them look like giant manned tiddlywinks bouncing on the surface of the water, and about as robust.
Lump of Sugar (Kostka cukru, 1986, 9 mins): This fuses the themes of the two previous films, in that it's both a portrait of sportsmen and a wordless meditation on man's ruthless exploitation of the natural world - in this case horses. Bribed with sugar (hence the title), and fetlocks tightly bound to cushion impact, they're paraded in front of crowds and forced to race each other for little apparent benefit to themselves. The film features plenty of conventional racing footage, including low-angle shots of horses jumping over hedges and brooks en masse (often in step-printed slow-motion, to emphasise the action), but Bławut stays behind to show things television broadcasters shy away from: horses missing the target and collapsing on the ground, their faces slapped to get them to stagger to their feet, examined by vets and put down there and then if they're judged unsalvageable. (This last sequence takes place behind a green sheet, to shield the sight from the public, though Bławut doesn't give us that luxury). If it's not as gory as Georges Franju's Le Sang des Bêtes (the kills are distressingly clean, in fact), there's a similar implied anger about the way we unthinkingly exploit and degrade these magnificent creatures for such trivial ends.
Skalski's Circus (Cyrk Skalskiego, 1986, 21 mins) and I Was A Wehrmacht General (Byłem generałem Wehrmachtu, 1988, 18 mins): These are broadly similar, so I've lumped them together - essentially, they feature the straight-to-camera reminiscences of legendary World War II fighter ace Stanisław Skalski and shipbuilding expert turned underground resistance hero Kazimierz Leski. In both cases their memories are illustrated with impressionistic images - in Skalski's case step-printed quasi-slow-motion footage of various WWII dogfights, while in the Leski film they've become more stylised: a particularly striking effect is of a naked prisoner standing in a cell, his back to the camera, having a tub of cold water thrown over him. The cell is lit by daylight, and then Bławut cuts to exactly the same setup and action, only at night and lit artificially. Then day again, then night, getting faster and faster - a very effective way of conveying prisoner abuse over a period of time that I don't think I've come across before.
The Abnormals (Nienormalni, 1990, 75 mins): The set's longest film is also the pivotal one in Bławut's career - it's when he abandoned highly stylised images in favour of observational fly-on-the-wall techniques. What this loses in visual distinction it gains immeasurably in terms of bringing the subject across - the whole point of the mentally disabled teenagers featured in the film is that they're actually completely normal in their various needs and desires, and a treatment that emphasises a sense of "otherness" (as in Bławut's previous films) would have done them and the film a severe disservice. I found it so engrossing that the 75 minutes flew by - there's a loose structure (a music teacher trying to get them to play something coherent in a makeshift orchestra), but the most memorable parts of the film come between those scenes, often in almost throwaway moments. Some of these hint at the difficulties the teenagers face in the outside world, such as a brief sequence in which one of them goes to a dance, takes a girl's hand, kisses it, and in the next shot is roughly hustled outside by two other boys.
Rugged Souls (Rogate dusze, 1996, 57 mins): For me, this study of members of the French Foreign Legion was less successful, at least partly because of the ruinous decision to present every non-Polish interview with an obtrusive Polish voiceover translation. (This must be especially intolerable if you're French, the language most of the original interviews seem to be in - French subtitles are supplied, but shouldn't be necessary!). This creates an unnecessary distancing effect (precisely the kind of distancing that wasn't present in The Abnormals) and precludes full engagement - though when the film focuses on Polish Legionnaire Mariusz, who lost a leg in Yugoslavia, the film gives a hint of what it might have been if the treatment of the other interviewees had been more sensitive. Mariusz' story is interspersed with that of veteran Legionnaires, who still feel more loyal to the Foreign Legion and their comrades there than their family or country.
More later - I'll try to watch the remaining three films today.
