CoMo No.1: Poland (May, 2022)

[sally]

LOL! i was thinking more about after he's done, how he pops the little chap away again...but all very educational....

[Holdrüholoheuho]

not really abundant with complexity & contradiction (not to speak of irony)...

1, 2, 3, 4 (Light Cheeks) (Józef Robakowski, 1993) #CoMoPoland
The Idle Line (Józef Robakowski, 1992) #CoMoPoland
Impulsators (Józef Robakowski, 2000) #CoMoPoland

The Energy Angles (Józef Robakowski, 2004) #CoMoPoland



Attention: Light! (Józef Robakowski, 2004) #CoMoPoland

[sally]

kredens - jacob dammas (2007) #CoMoPoland
oko boga / the eye of god - igor kawecki (2019) #CoMoPoland
szpital przemienienia / hospital of the transfiguration - edward żebrowski (1979) #CoMoPoland

[Lencho of the Apes]

Is it not possible that the title of Polski Film also references A Serbian Film? Chewing on that idea doesn't take me anywhere, but nothing else about the movie did either. Sorry, folks.

[sally]

szpital przemienienia / hospital of the transfiguration - edward żebrowski (1979) #CoMoPoland

Stanislaw Lem adaptation! And it's mostly not overthetop nutsy-cuckoo!

but overthetop nutsy-cuckoo is precisely what i wanted! i'm fed up of allegories that don't celebrate their false absurdity. i may have to go szulkin skulking but the problem is that i can't remember if i've obi'd or ga'd

[sally]

happy friday the 13th!

pierwszy pawilon / first pavilion - janusz majewski (1968) #CoMoPoland
każdemu to czego mu wcale nie trzeba / everybody gets what he doesn't need - grzegorz królikiewicz (1966) #CoMoPoland
idź / go - grzegorz królikiewicz (1989) #CoMoPoland


now seeing as i'd already seen szczęśliwa trzynastka (lucky thirteen) and munk's zezowate szczęście (bad luck) i was wondering what to watch today but then i found they'd made a sequel to bad luck!


obywatel piszczyk / citizen piszczyk - andrzej kotkowski (1989) #CoMoPoland

This film is a sequel to Munk’s Zezowate Szczescie and it’s much the same, only more so. The film begins in a cinema, where the last scenes of Zezowate Szczescie are being shown. Born unlucky, a victim of the errors and distortions of Stalinism, he is released in 1956. He meets a politically feverish woman, her influential parents, and finally becomes the father of her child. But bad luck, or perhaps an unlucky era, will not let him forget.

but aside from the nice conceit of the main character watching the end of the film bad luck at the beginning of this one, this isn't remotely as fun and zippy and sarcastic as munk's (i guess reflecting the drudgy greyness of 80's poland but still...) in fact i got a bit bored and had time to admire the furnishings, including this nice stuffed bird on the bookcase




AND FINALLY BUT OF COURSE!

[sally]

oczekiwanie / expectation - witold giersz, ludwik perski (1962) #CoMoPoland

opera o polsce / opera about poland - piotr stasik (2017) #CoMoPoland

Opera about Poland is a film that functions through collage, combining elements of archival footage, documentary, staged scenes, press reports, social announcements, sale offers and speech excerpts, all in an attempt to answer the question: Pole, who are you? The film refers to the Polish tradition of a creative documentary in the style of Wojciech Wiszniewski, and presents various manifestations of Polishness, that can be situated under the headings of patriotic and religious rituals, everyday tradition, landscapes portraiture, and intimate memories from childhood

there's some *really* lovely images in this one but gosh it's just 40 mins of the director being totally disgusted with contemporary poland (to be fair, all the polish people i know would agree with him)





why yes i think i will, good idea...

[sally]

sky is blue, water is yellow, it's too hot and an ice-cream parlor has opened in hebden (revolutionary)

nowy janko muzykant / new janko the musician - jan lenica (1961) #CoMoPoland

[sally]

przygody kropli wody / the adventure of a drop of water - józef ćwiertnia #CoMoPoland

tapestry ii - andrzej czeczot (1977) #CoMoPoland



how the fuck did we end up here again?

[sally]

AUTHOR DAY! (a little bit)


sławomir mrożek przedstawia - paweł łoziński (1997) #CoMoPoland

tbh this wasn't that interesting, but just to see a film with a writer i actually like!





and he seems to be strangely absent in film adaptations...although i already accidentally watched one imdb credit - he's the crazy diner in ^^^ majewski's rondo! (see earlier in this thread)





nieciekawa historia / an uneventful story - wojciech has (1983) #CoMoPoland

A well-known professor of medicine finding himself at the threshold of autumn of his life, takes stock of his achievements and experiences. “In the end it ends with what has been known for a long time: that conscious life without a fixed worldview is not life, but torment, horror. - wrote Anton Chekhov in one of his letters summarizing “An Uninteresting Story”. The protagonist, Professor Nikolai Stepanovich, is a character characteristic of Chekhov’s entire oeuvre - a Russian intellectual from the late nineteenth century, depressed by boredom and a sense of his own uselessness and the meaninglessness of his existence.

beautiful beautiful beautiful film i may be getting desperate to resort to Has, but this is just lovely, pessimistic perfection. another highlight of CoMo

[sally]

oh and cuz this is the polish CoMo of all things, we should post the poster if it's cool

(i have no idea what this one has to do with the film)

[sally]

firstly...

gilgamesz / gilgamesh - jan petryszyn (1976) #CoMoPoland #literature

cuneiform in the tablets = clay characters, it's 16 minutes long





SECONDLY





pożegnanie jesieni / farewell to autumn - mariusz treliński (1990) #CoMoPoland #witkiewicz



so respectful of witkacy, that i just have to accept that he's unfilmable - they got something of his energy, and i got enough of a glimmer of a novel i'll never read, but if żuławski can't even do gombrowicz (cosmos was great, for a żuławski film, but it wasn't full gombrowicz, & i can't even face skolimowski doing ferdydurke) then i dunno who could do witkacy...(needs strong visual style and to be a complete bastard...albert serra??)


doesn't help that zanussi of all people was artistic supervisor....not sure i could have thought of anyone worse suited, even wajda would have been better...




i'm sad now.....

[sally]

oh i forgot the poster

[sally]

(moonrise, łacha, poland - ansel adams)

pełnia / full moon - andrzej kondratiuk (1979) #CoMoPoland #♥♥♥

i am ablaze with love! i'm glad rischka is taking a twitter break, i worry jiri isn't getting enough sleep, i fret about the quietness of others - this is how a good film makes a blessing! and this is since kochanie has been fading away and it's the deep male voices gently saying chodź (come) everywhere that make me dissolve...


city dweller (architect, 49 yrs old)



goes to the country to find himself and teach the locals a thing or two - i had concerns at the beginning:




as did others, those infamous lboxd reviewers:

Initially it seems to patronize the agrarians, the yokels, in a boring, typical way, as unambitious simplefolk, but,

it's too considerate, too gentle, in the end too unassuming to warrant any...damnation....



and it IS beautiful, like béla tarr, but as warm as he is merciless....and if there was anyone harbouring a slight niggle at the sentimentality (not me! for once) the cinematographer, witold leszczyński, made his own back to the back-of-beyond bleak response a few years later, with siekierezada / the axiliad - so i think that's quits.

guys i loved this film, and now i appear to be made of duck feathers

watch it, in super crisp HD b&w, here: https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/full-moon

[Holdrüholoheuho]

The Energy Manifesto! (Józef Robakowski, 2003, 2m) #CoMoPoland
I'm Going... (Józef Robakowski, 1973, 3m) #CoMoPoland
Nearer-Farther (Józef Robakowski, 1985, 4m) #CoMoPoland
Dance with Trees (Józef Robakowski, 1985, 3m) #CoMoPoland
Cars, Cars! (Józef Robakowski, 1985, 2m) #CoMoPoland
La-Lu (Józef Robakowski, 1985, 2m) #CoMoPoland

not sure if it's the result of my chronic sleep deficit
or of my longing for something icky
(in the mids of all the overly conceptual filmmaking)
but (while watching/listening NEARER-FARTHER) whenever it was said "bliżej" ("nearer" in Polish)
i heard "blízej" ("lick" in colloquial Czech)...

https://vimeo.com/193119207

LA-LU is like NEARER-FARTHER.
only here, "la" means "farther" and "lu" means "nearer".
thus there is no cross-cultural misunderstanding/misinterpretation.

https://youtu.be/coNenHpBTZU

i didn't watch either FROM MY WINDOW (or BALCONY MOVIE) yet
(i intend to do so!)
but i expect CARS, CARS! (1985, 2m) is rehearsals for FROM MY WINDOW (2000, 20m).

https://vimeo.com/194793261

[sally]

blízej – dalej / nearer - further - józef robakowski (1985) #CoMoPoland
la - lu la - lu - józef robakowski (1985) #CoMoPoland
samochody, samochody! / cars, cars! - józef robakowski (1985) #CoMoPoland
blízej – dalej / nearer - further - józef robakowski (1985) #CoMoPoland

ludzie wisły / the people of the vistula - aleksander ford, jerzy zarzycki (1938) #CoMoPoland

there is ALWAYS a barge movie! (this one ain't exactly vigo, or epstein, or antoine or etc)

[Holdrüholoheuho]

something i grabbed very long ago (probably after watching MAJDANEK - EUROPE'S CEMETARY by Aleksander Ford)...

now, taking #CoMoPoland as a pretext to finally watch it ↓
HOLOCAUST: THE LIBERATION OF MAJDANEK
MAJDANEK 1944 - OPFER UND TÄTER
(Irmgard von zur Mühlen, Bengt von zur Mühlen, 1986)
→ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0791522/

seems like not listed on lbox?!?!
lbox (instead) offers this → https://letterboxd.com/film/the-majdane ... mber-myth/

Anton Thernes → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Thernes
from Trier
52 yrs old
married
6 children
certified accountant and bookkeeper by profession
highest-ranking SS officer captured in Majdanek:

I'm not a sadist.
I didn't beat anyone.
I never have.
I'm not a sadist.
I've never been a sadist.
I'm far too well educated for that.
Too well educated!

[sally]

i was in the local bookshop at lunch today chatting to the owner about polish literature. he was of the opinion that it was largely horrifically miserable stuff about the camps. i was like 'what? nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo'

and well here we are. i might have to go watch the lick movie again just for balance

[Holdrüholoheuho]

COME TO ME (Józef Robakowski, 1989) #CoMoPoland

COME TO ME should be watched together with I'M GOING... (Józef Robakowski, 1973)

https://vimeo.com/202213987

https://vimeo.com/192276716

[Holdrüholoheuho]

whoever was not lazy and watched both previous films will be able to fully empathize with the next...

OUCH, MY FOOT HURTS... (Józef Robakowski, 1990) #CoMoPoland

https://vimeo.com/193847279

[rischka]

way down in pocomo

[img]https://i.imgur.com/2OCmrN5.png[?img}

[rischka]

oh i fucked this up huh. lol appropriate cuz

dancing hawk is a fucked up movie

[sally]

screw this #CoMoPoland diligence! no one gives a shit anyway!

[sally]

i was unjust in not naming the gombrowicz film (partially pic'd in above post) since it's basically a greatest hits (perversions) compilation & the perfect complement to schoenherr's 1978 robert walser #favouriteauthors film i watched for DtC

witold gombrowicz: voorvallen, avonturen / gombrowicz: incidents, adventures - jan decorte (1977) #CoMoPoland #favouriteauthors

suppose also should mention konwicki doing mickiewicz in his very furious dream fuck you to the soviets - lawa (1989) #CoMoPoland #authorsquared

but anyway, did i not say that someone said that poland is feminine? immense & endless phallic pathology (i sympathize)

[sally]

miejsce urodzenia / birthplace - paweł łoziński (1992) #CoMoPoland

harrowing, brutal, don't watch, won't recommend


sąsiady / neighborhooders - grzegorz królikiewicz (2014) #CoMoPoland

will recommend, the first half at least. k's last film before death and love all these batty old filmmakers going the way of gonna-enjoy-meself jancsó, although tbh królikiewicz was like that all the way through, this film just looks more....modern (=crappy) - episodic, grimy, logical absurdities with a slight run-through (łódź tenements of hell), so clearly based on the kind of short story (author entirely untranslated alas) that's exactly the kind of thing i want to read (one lboxd reviewer scornfully calls it post-89 polish lit, and i want it)

but obviously my favourite segment:

[sally]

halka - konstanty meglicki (1930) #CoMoPoland

film doesn't remotely live up to director's name or the traditionally lurid peasant girl impregnated by piece of shit pretty boy lord plot (should have given it to tulio! or a swede) but wow does it love the polish countryside

[Holdrüholoheuho]

peek into the 1980s Poland.
hopefully, gonna watch it during the next PoCoMo...

TOTART, OR REASON REGAINED (Bartosz Paduch, 2014, 76m)

https://vimeo.com/106414219

[Holdrüholoheuho]

https://www.polishdocs.pl/en/films/1383/
To create this masterpiece, both exceptional courage and ingenuity were required.

https://letterboxd.com/2_0saint/film/sk ... z-klammer/
a perfect movie for pseudo-artsy people who think they’re special by saying that is a masterpiece or their favorite movie

Ev'rybody's talking 'bout
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m

ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE MASTERPIECE A CHANCE!
ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE MASTERPIECE A CHANCE!

Hit it
C'mon, ev'rybody's talking about
Ministers, sinisters, banisters and canisters
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Popeyes and bye-bye, bye-byes

ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE MASTERPIECE A CHANCE!
ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE MASTERPIECE A CHANCE!

Let me tell you now
Ev'rybody's talking 'bout
Revolution, evolution, masturbation, flagellation, regulation, integrations
Meditations, United Nations, congratulations

ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE MASTERPIECE A CHANCE!
ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE MASTERPIECE A CHANCE! #CoMoPoland

[Lencho of the Apes]

Ha! I watched this today. It was... well, what I saw may not have been what the creators intended; it looked like a Polish Joe D'Alessandro and his less-gifted friends doing manly athletic stuff and/or goofing around, making sure to do damage to the environment at every possible moment. As if someone from the queer phalanx of NYC underground film ca 1963 had developed a wacky sense of humor.

I think I'll just use this precis at B when I get there...

[sally]

and his less-gifted friends doing manly athletic stuff and/or goofing around

they might be his friends (and big 'might' there)....but they were also the directors of the film (i may have mentioned how cute rybczyński is in this once or maybe twice) and it might be an extreme version of it, but i don't think it's that out of step with what else was going on in polish documentary at the time (see also wiszniewski, eg wanda or his elementarz that i re-enjoyed along with franz klammer a few pages back)

if all anyone gets out of this particular CoMo is JoRo, and riding on the rybczyński love train, i am fine with that