Is theory futile?

 Cate Blanchett in Julian Rosefeldt film "Manifesto"

finally a film about ideas fueled by ideas and yet the one that puts ideas where they properly belong namely somewhere after the visible, after the felt, after the lived and experienced. 

it is a quite disquieting proposition: it seems to show immaturity, limitations and well… idiocy of any attempt to formulate a formula. 

does it show the need to transcend the urge to put things into a set of theoretic assumptions and scoldings toward reality in the name of a newly discovered “truth”? 

if so to transcend it with what?

does it express the failure of all attempts “to get things right”?

an amazing rhythmic feast, to say the least.  a wonderful acting presentations (who cares that a few of the vignettes could be critiqued as overdone - the totality of the piece if alive and moving)

my favorite one is of course a classroom scene with quotes from recent film manifestos. 

splendid!

Self Immolation

 "I, an ordinary, common man, urge you - wake up!"

 "Wake up"

This is the site of the self immolation in a political protest of a 54 year old man.  The man, Piotr Szczesny,  before setting himself on fire passed around copies of a letter which listed 15 areas of his protest.  They included: limiting individual freedoms, destruction of judiciary system, breaking constitution, centralizing law, rampant nepotism, disastrous foreign policy, waging cultural and emotional warfare, encouraging anti-immigrant and anti-minorities attitudes, ignoring tremendous medical service needs, ruinous educational reform, destruction of nature.  Mr. Szczesny writes that we should not fight with the supporters of the ruling party because: 

“ they are our mothers, brothers, neighbors, friends and colleagues.  It’s not about fighting them (that’s exactly what the party in power wants), and it’s not about “converting them” (because that’s naive), it’s about convincing them to realize their views in a lawful and democratic way.  Perhaps a change in the party leadership will suffice.”

Even though the above paragraph seems to be directed to those who are personally responsible for the current disaster in Poland, the rest of the letter addresses the people and not politicians.  At the end of this letter Piotr writes “Wake up.  It’s not too late yet.”

Those who aren’t sensitive to the idea of democracy and a true common good society shrug their shoulders and go about their business.  After all economy is in great shape.  The government belittles Mr. Szczesny and paints him as a victim of the opposition which, according to the official party line,  just wants to maintain the old, bad way things were.   Others are terrified by the gradual but steady disintegration of freedom, democracy and decency very often done in a manner recalling worst ways of the previous Ruling Party.   Both sides call each other “commies.”

Piotr Szczesny is dead.

Screenwriting workshop

An insanely ambitious film-making workshop has begun with writing three short scenes.   

Spoor, the book III

continuing my translating attempts:

“I am moved by satellite pictures and the curvature of Earth.  Is it indeed the truth that we live on the surface of a sphere, exposed to the stare of planets, abandoned in the great nothingness, in which light after the Fall coagulated into small particles and spread out everywhere?  Yes, that’s the truth.  We should be reminded of this daily since we keep forgetting it.  We are under the impression that we are free and that God will forgive us. Personally, I think it’s not so.  Each deal, transformed into minute vibrations of photons like a film will eventually take off into the Cosmos and till the end of the world planets will watch it.”

With the access to such sensitivity of the narrator/main character we are nevertheless deprived of the knowledge of her innermost emotions that curry her to commit crimes.  That's what I don't understand and am waiting for the movie adaptation to hopefully make sense of this divide.

Spoor, the book II

the following is my clumsy attempt to quote from the book:

“We have sung about the brightness which exists somewhere far away and can’t be seen yet but when we die we will look at it with our own eyes.  Now we see it only through a mirror as if in a funny glass but one day we will face it full front and clear.  And she will envelope us, that brightness, because she is our mother and it’s from her that we came.  And what’s more amazing, we carry her part in us, all of us do that.  So actually we should rejoice death.

That’s what I though when singing but actually I never believed in any personalized distribution of Brightness.  No God handles that, no Heavenly Accountant."

Spoor, the book

 A promotional image for "Spoor" the movie.

(spoilers!)

Before seeing “Spoor” a movie directed by Agnieszka Holland I dived into “Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead" by Olga Tokarczuk, the book that “Spoor” is the adaptation of.

The book is fantastic, beautiful prose (I hope translations can convey it) and also, if not mainly, because it paints an inner portrait of a very captivating, off beat character.   Janina is expressive, full of (unintended) poetry (the best kind), practitioner of astrology, a feisty environmentalist, defender of animal rights, outspoken, full of zest.  A fabulous character.   I was totally enchanted. 

As we enter her inner world the outer environment is rocked by a series of murders.   She claims animals are taking revenge on people who hunt them.  OK, this fits her profile to date. 

Then, in the last part of the tale it turns out that the killer is herself.  A very strange narrative move. First I am invited to the inner world of a main character and then I am told that the most important thing about that person has been totally hidden from me during the long time I was learning to love her.   Is it fair?

That feeling of disappointment is however turned around at the end of the novel.  The murderer, together with her friend moves into a different part of the country where she lives a quiet, anonymous life.  Nobody knows about her murders there, so in some weird way the narrative loops back and justifies our lack of knowledge about her real inner life in the first part of the story.  

This is a very challenging and unorthodox construction.  I am not sure if I buy it. But I wonder how the film will handle this problem.

The View from a Cathedral - 2018

Stanislaw Elsner-Zaluski as prof. Marek Siemek

For some time I've been toying with the idea of blogging about a progress of one of my productions.  This hasn't happened yet, but several updates regarding "The View from a Cathedral" actually show a process of finishing a project.  It's been years (budget, budget, budget) and finally the final version is done.  I am beginning to seek exposure to this documentary and will be posting the results.

"The View from a Cathedral" (53 min.) explores the drama of prof. Marek Siemek (1942-2011), a Polish philosopher highly esteemed in Germany (a specialist in Transcendental Idealism) caught in the torment of loyalty, friendship and betrayal that resulted from the 1968 anti-Semitic purge in Poland.

In Polish, German and Italian - with English subtitles. 

more info at http://www.directing.com/cathedral.html