Filip Bajon - The Masterpieces of Polish Cinema (3-DVD)

The Masterpieces of Polish Cinema
Filip Bajon

Studio: SPI International, 2010
Number of disks: 3
Condition: Brand New, Sealed, Mint
Total time: 276 minutes
Language version: Polish
Subtitles: English
Region: 2
TV System: PAL. European or multi-system DVD player is required to see this DVD.
Featuring: Janusz Gajos, Henryk Bista, Jerzy Trela, Jerzy Stuhr, Gustaw Holoubek, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Roman Wilhelmi, Zdzislaw Wardejn, Wojciech Pszoniak, Elzbieta Czyzewska, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Pola Raksa, Michal Bajor, Piotr Skrzynecki, Bogusz Bilewski, Danel Olbrychski

About the director:

Born 1947 in Poznan. Having finished law studies at The Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, (1970), he continued his education at the Film School in Lodz (Film Directing, 1974). He wrote several novels including "Polar Bears Do Not Like Sunny Weather" which won the Wilhelm Mach Award for the best debut (1972). He has also worked in theater and for television. He has won numerous awards at film festivals.  For few years he also headed the now-defunct "Dom" Film Studio.

Selection:

DVD 1

Aria dla atlety (Aria for an Athlete)

Plot: Set at the turn of the century it presents a story of a famous Polish wrestler, Zbyszko Cyganiewicz. It begins in a small town where a traveling circus attracts a shy boy into a phony wrestling game to please the crowds. The youth, however, takes his strength seriously, eventually defeating a name wrestler in a fair match...

What the critics say:

Filip Bajon's first full-length film was "Aria dla atlety / Aria for an Athlete". The style the director presented was surprisingly different and fresh compared to the slightly journalistic trend of the "cinema of moral anxiety" that dominated in Polish cinema at the time. Some critics tried to present Bajon's work as an opposite "creative trend". In an interview granted to M. Kornatowska, the director himself admitted that he saw a conflict in cinema between pragmatic immediacy and aesthetics. "In cinema", he said, "I am fascinated with creating the world from scratch, inventing it, in other words - a demiurgic function. All this, of course, can be brought under the notion of creativity". The formal means used in "Aria for an Athlete" were characterized expressively by cinematographer Jerzy Zieliński, who said that his task during the making of the film was to visually enrich each scene from the script. The instructions he followed could be summarized in the words "extreme in every scene". The director believed "a film has to be blown up, it has to show a world that never existed", and to achieve this "you have to show extreme situations". These words can be treated as his artistic credo.  Building his film shots, Bajon also turned to visual arts  - "Aria for an Athlete" features shots stylized to look like Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings and Beardsley's drawings.

DVD 2

Wizja Lokalna 1901 (Inspection of the Crime Scene 1901)

Plot: The story deals with the famous incident that occurred in schoolroom of Wrzesnia, near Prussian-Russian border of partitioned Poland, in 1901. The issue is the teaching of religion in German schools, a decision that draws a protest from Polish deputies in the German parliament. A local priest invoked the strike and continues to support the children when they refuse to participate in the lessons, even under beatings and threats.

What the critics say:

"Wizja lokalna 1901" marked the start of a new perception of the director's work. The critics appreciated the film's visual value, but another important element was the treatment of a patriotic theme with "cool rationalism", showing the school strikes against the Germanization of Polish children in a way that was "devoid of emotion". This did not preclude image creativity, and the combination of these two seemingly contradictory styles of speaking was a great value of the film. This picture and subsequent ones provided a basis for defining the topics on which the director focused. "Bajon is not interested in the mechanisms or tragedies of history, but in unique breakthrough moments that he presents as unusual visions of the end of the world", wrote J. Lewandowski, pointing out that in almost every film, and in his prose as well, Bajon is interested in the moment when "one era gives way to another", creating a "model situation of disintegration in which one can sense a mood of decadence".
 

DVD 3

Limuzyna Dailmer-Benz (Daimler-Benz Limousine)

Plot: The events are set in Poznan, in late summer of 1939, at the onset of German invasion on Poland. It is a family tale involving two teen-age brothers of German descent, each of them taking opposite side in the events. One day they steal the car of a German consul, trying to take it for a ride in the country...

What the critics say:

A. Kolodynski wrote in 1980 that in the case of Bajon's films, a biography is only "the starting point for the vivid imagination", noticing a resemblance to the style of Russell and Fellini. In Fellini's case, this even involved quotes from his films, testifying to a fascination with the Italian filmmaker's work.

text courtesy of © Ewa Nawoj, Instytut Adama Mickiewicza and IMDB