EXTRAS OF HISTORY, EPICURES OF LIFE
Few days ago, the successive edition of the Cannes Film Festival started. Soon, in women's press we will read (or rather see) what is in fashion on the red carpet this season; and from specialist press we will learn who is awarded the Palm d'Or. One is certain, it is not going to be a Polish film, because, as an established tradition now, none of our films have made it to the main competition. Nevertheless, we will mark our presence by a so-called Polish Day, connected with the projection of Andrzej Wajda's Kanal. The time and the place are not accidental: it was exactly in Cannes that 50 years ago this film was awarded Jury Special Prize, tied with Bergman's The Seventh Seal. The importance of Kanal in Polish cinematography does not need to be explained. I may only refer you to the May issue of “Kino” (no. 5/2007), where Tadeusz Lubelski writes on how the film was received and the influence the Cannes awards exerted on it (Kanał 50 lat temu: paradoks odbioru). The fact is that the Polish film school emerging at that time became an important part of the international cinematography, which can be seen even in the number of prestigious awards it received. Few years later, a new artistic being appeared on the same map – the Czech film school, so different, despite being a close neighbour, from ours. In spite of the geographical proximity, a lot divides a Pole from a Czech: attitude towards history, which for us is usually tragic and for our southern neighbours – more tragicomic.
“As many as 95% of my society are apolitical. ... You have always been rebelling, fighting for freedom and now you are coming to terms with your past. We, in turn, have never been fighting against anything, we have always been pragmatic.” said Jiři Menzel in an interview for the May issue of “Film” (Jestem synem marnotrawnym) indicating the difference between the Polish and Czech mentality. Even in the 70s in his well-known essay Potíže střední Evropy: anekdota a dějiny, Josef Kroutvor described an insignificant Czech man as an extra of history, who “does not feel himself to be a citizen, his everyday life is not civil or civic but banal, grey, and twisted. A Czech lacks civic awareness, while he has a very sharp sense for the grotesque details of life, humour and plebeian showing-off.” An example of this Czech mentality is Jan Dìtě ( dìtě is 'a child'), the main character in I Served the King of England, Menzel's latest film and, in the same time, his another adaptation of Bohumil Hrabal's prose. The first one he adapted was a novelette Death of Mr. Baltazar in Pearls of the Deep (1964), a film produced by a group of young directors (Věra Chitylová, Jiři Menzel, Jireš, Jan Nemĕc, Evald Schorm) on the basis of the short stories of the writer making his debut at that time. Pearls of the Deep were received as a manifest of the Czech school, whose literary patron was Hrabal, with his “metaphysics of the everyday”, poetic and tragicomic vision of the world, ironic but warm attitude towards his characters. The story of motor race lovers was a starting point of many years of collaboration (and friendship, even though the director, contrary to the writer, couldn't stand beer and inns) of the two artists, which bore the fruits of Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains (1996) and Larks On a String (1969), blocked for 20 years by the censorship. After the Soviet intervention, Menzel did not decide to emigrate, like for example Forman; today he says that he has stayed because of cowardice – he was afraid of the unknown reality. The price he had to pay for the ability to make films, including Hrabal's Cutting It Short (1980) and The Snowdrop Festival (1983), were artistic compromises, like a neo-production Who Looks for Gold? (1974). The script of I Served the King of England was written without Hrabal; however, the director managed to get the permission for the film before the death of the author, which later became a cause for a scandal: the producer cheated Menzel and sold the copyright to the novel to one of TV channels that wanted to make it into a serial. Put out by this, the director whipped the dishonest partner; what is more, he did so during the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which was reported by all news agencies; the case found its way to the court. After 10 years, Menzel finally managed to make the film (the text went earlier to Jan Hřebejko) and with a success since he was awarded, among others, the Critics' Award at the Berlinale 2007.
“I give in to what life brings. A bit like Jan. And I'm fine with this,” said the director, who on the one hand identifies himself with his character, a collaborator, and on the other hand, he often expresses his respect and admiration for the Polish attitudes. I Served the King of England will probably provoke questions on the limits of opportunism and the price of heroism. In one of the interviews, Menzel said that Praga had well escaped wartime destruction but it pays for it with its twisted character and the lack of national dignity in the Czechs, conversely to Warsaw and Poles. Then is it the case of Czech pragmatism, passiveness, willingness to live for every price and the ability to make a deal with any occupant versus Polish heroism, the imperative to participate actively in the historical process and sacrificing for the case? A dichotomy of this kind seems a bit false and not really needed, especially in the context of Menzel's film, which is not about final dealings with the past or a verdict passed on the collaborator. Not history is important here, but the ordinary life going on its margins, which has its taste, its pearls at the bottom i.e. peculiarities rendering it unusual, regardless of political circumstances. As Bartosz Żurawiecki aptly remarks in his review, hedonism by Hrabal and Menzel is not contaminated by ideology; it is its opposite as a joy of experiencing pleasures, not only spiritual, but also bodily. And this ability to enjoy life, seeing the glass half full one should learn from the Czech brothers, following Hrabal's motto, which he took from his uncle Pepin: “This world is beautiful up to the point of madness. It is not that it really is so, but I see it as such.”
Katarzyna Wajda
Translated by Anna Skrajna
Discussed journals: Film