View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Culture
12 March 2010updated 12 Oct 2023 10:59am

Poland on screen

Cinematic treasures from the East at the Kinoteka festival.

By Daniel Trilling

For several years now, the Polish Cultural Institute has been making efforts to educate Britons about their (not so) distant European neighbour. In recent months, we’ve seen exhibitions from the artist Miroslaw Balka, reviewed here by Sue Hubbard, and a festival to celebrate Chopin’s bicentenary.

Currently under way is Kinoteka, a festival of Polish film now in its eighth year. The two films I’ve seen so far are excellent (if very different) reasons to catch the rest of the festival, which finishes on 13 April.

The first is from the veteran director Andrzej Wajda. Sweet Rush centres on an adaptation of a novel about a doctor’s wife post-war Poland, but it also features a secondary narrative in which the lead actress, Krystyna Jandar, recounts the death of her husband, the screenwriter and friend of Wajda, Edward Klosinski. The two storylines mingle in an unsettling fashion, Jandar’s own grief chiming with that of the doctor’s wife, whose two teenage sons died fighting in the Warsaw Uprising. My Polish correspondent tells me that Sweet Rush is partly Wajda’s response to criticism that he had become too conservative a film-maker in recent years; Wajda’s long career took off with a trilogy of war films in the 1950s that led to his acclaim as one of Europe’s most important directors..

Snow White, Russian Red, is a quite different prospect. Based on a novel by Dorota Maslowska, a young literary star in Poland, it has been billed as “the Polish Trainspotting“. But don’t let that put you off — while it does indeed feature a cast of disaffected, drug-taking working-class Poles, led by a wonderfully clownish skinhead nicknamed Silny (“hard-nut”), the film is shot in lively, anarchic style, with some great moments of physical comedy. The film is hard to categorise, as is Maslowska’s original novel, which the director Xawery Zulaski, perhaps a little excitedly, compared to Joyce’s Ulysses in the post-film Q&A. The plot loosely follows Silny’s travails as he attempts to win back his girlfriend, giving viewers a tour of the confusing world that the post-Communist generation of Poles have inherited.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

So there you have it: good, adventurous film-making — and not a Danny Boyle in sight. Oh, and for those that dare, there’s a Roman Polanski retrospective, too.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU