Holland’s Charlatan

Jan Mikolasek was not a urologist, or even a doctor, but he claimed to diagnose all his patients’ ailments from a yellow liquid sample. Maybe he could, or maybe he was phenomenally lucky. However, his luck ran out when Czechoslovak Communist President Antonin Zapotocky died. Without the protection of his most famous patient, Mikolasek faces the wrath of the Communist state in Agnieszka Holland’s Charlatan, which screens during MoMI’s Holland retrospective.

The film is titled Charlatan, but that is the regime’s perspective. Holland and screenwriters Marek Epstein, Martin Sulc, and Jaroslav Sedlacek largely accept the efficacy of his herbal treatments (he was a licensed herbalist). In flashbacks, we see Mikolasek train with a traditional country healer, after his horrific stint in the army. Even if he benefits from a massive and persistent placebo effect, there is little criticism of his practice from from his patients.

On the other hand, there obvious reasons why the Party is out to get him. Yes, he treated the occupying National Socialists (while covertly funding the resistance), but the Party appreciated those who sucked up to power. On the other hand, he fought the nationalization of his practice. He is also gay, secretly engaging in a sexual relationship with his married assistant Frantisek Palko, but maybe not without completely arousing suspicions.

With Charlatan, Holland (the Polish auteur) returns to the Czechoslovakian Communist nightmare experience and reunites with Ivan Trojan, who co-starred in her monumental Burning Bush. Charlatan certainly reflects the paranoia and capriciousness of life under the Communist regime, but it is much more a psychological study, of a somewhat strange and deeply flawed individual. Of course, those shortcomings do not justify the Party’s orchestrated campaign to trump up charges against him.

Agnieszka Holland’s Mr. Jones

In times of crisis, some reporters set a valiant standard of professionalism, while others cravenly betray their commitment to the truth and free expression. Do not count on the journalistic establishment to accurately identify the former or the latter. Today, Walter Duranty is widely recognized as a willing stooge, who knowingly covered up Stalin’s genocidal crimes. Yet, the Pulitzer board refuses to rescind his Pulitzer Prize and his old employer, the New York Times has declined to return it. Gareth Jones exposed the Ukrainian Holodomor, the deliberate, systemic starvation of millions of Ukrainian—the very story Duranty tried to hide from the world. Agnieszka Holland (who was imprisoned in Czechoslovakia and exiled from her native Poland) tells the Welsh journalist’s tragic-heroic story in Mr. Jones, which releases today on VOD.

Initially, Jones did not come to Moscow to dig up dirt on the Communist system. The plan was to secure an interview with Stalin, in hopes of convincing the dictator to open a second front against the newly ascendant Hitler (alas, Germany and the USSR would sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact four years after the events of this film). However, when Jones arrives in Moscow, he finds his (fictionalized) good friend Paul Kleb (a transparent reference to Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes journalist suspiciously murdered while investigating Putin) has been killed by petty street crime (in the workers’ paradise), according to Duranty, through whom the Soviets grant or withhold western journalists’ access.

The last time Jones spoke to Kleb, he mentioned a potentially explosive scoop. In short order, Duranty’s German colleague Ada Brooks confirms the open secret of widespread Ukrainian famine, but she counsels Jones to go along, to get along. Instead, he risks his life and liberty to investigate the Ukrainian genocide first-hand.

Mr. Jones is very much a historical expose, in the tradition of Holland’s masterwork, The Burning Bush, but in many ways, it also functions as a gripping thriller. Viewers can almost literally feel the eyes of the early surveillance state on them as Jones secretly pursues the truth. At times, Holland and production designer Gregorz Piatkowski make 1930s Moscow literally resemble the dystopia of 1984. Clearly, this is deliberate, since Holland flashforwards to George Orwell writing Animal Farm (inspired by Jones’ reports) as a recurring motif.

James Norton is well-cast as Jones, convincingly conveying his initial naiveté and idealism, as well as his profound revulsion and righteous outrage. Yet, the real horror comes from Peter Sarsgaard’s chillingly calculated Duranty. You will be hard-pressed to find a more unsettling film villain—and he is scrupulously based on a real-life (Pulitzer Prize-winning) figure. Sargaard’s performance and Holland’s depiction of the Holodomor largely overshadow much of the film, but as Brooks, Vanessa Kirby still has some memorable moments, late in the third act.

NYFF ’17: Spoor

It turns out Count Zaroff was right. Man is the most dangerous game. Something is poaching the poachers, because it is never hunting season for well-armed male chauvinists in this ridiculously backward Polish village. We had a good run at the top of the food chain, but the natural world just might be fighting back in Agnieszka Holland & Kasia Adamik’s disappointing Spoor (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 55^th New York Film Festival.

A retired engineer and part-time school teacher like Janina Duszejko ought to be a forceful advocate for animal rights, but whenever she tries to file a complaint against poachers, she ends up sputtering incomprehensible moral outrage. It makes it easy for the venal police chief to disregard her, but still earns her plenty of enemies. Waking one morning to find her beloved dogs missing, Duszejko suspects the worst and her fears are justified. However, a noxious poacher turns up dead shortly thereafter. The circumstances are suspicious, but baffling, since the only tracks leading up to the body are of the four-legged variety (you know, animal spoor).

Is something supernaturally natural afoot, as in Fessenden’s The Last Winter and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, or is there a more Scooby-Doo explanation, involving Old Man Smitters and a wolf costume? Somehow, Holland and co-screenwriter Olga Tokarczuk (adapting her own novel) come up with an answer that will leave all sides deeply unsatisfied, which is sort of perversely admirable.

We are supposed to be charmed and impressed by Duszejko’s pluckiness, but it is frankly annoying how she is always feeling things so deeply. She even recruits an amiably geeky hacker to her cause, but her strategy still largely consists of ineffectual tantrums. Her motives for investigating the murders never really compute either, especially if they are the result of Mother Nature rising up.

Nevertheless, Holland’s skill as a filmmaker remains crystal clear throughout Spoor. Holland, co-director Adamik, and cinematographers Jolanta Dylewska and Rafal Paradowski give it an evocatively icy noir look. Just watching it will make you feel chilly. Holland also manages to maintain a palpable sense of tension, despite giving us so little in terms of real deal genre business. Viewers just keep watching, because they will feel like something significant is always about to happen.

Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka is fine as Duszejko, but like her character, she probably would have reaped better results by working smarter rather than working harder. Clearly, subtlety was not a priority for anyone involved. Nicely atmospheric but filled with light-weight polemics, Spoor should not be a priority when it screens this Saturday (9/30) and Sunday (10/1), as part of the 2017 NYFF.

Burning Bush: Jan Palach and the Legacy of Resistance

Tourists visiting Prague’s Rudolfinum concert hall will find themselves in Jan Palach Square.  The newest public square in the Old Town quarter, it was known as Square of Red Army Soldiers during the grim era of Communism.  An earnest university student, Palach sacrificed his life to re-awaken opposition to the Soviet occupation of 1968 (those very same Red Army Soldiers), eventually becoming a galvanizing symbol of the Velvet Revolution.

Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland was also studying in the then Czechoslovakia when Palach self-immolated on Wenceslas Square.  She shared the feelings of inspiration, frustration, and rage that swept across the country in the days that followed. Now she masterfully captures the tenor of those oppressive times in the monumental Burning Bush (trailer here), which opens today in New York at Film Forum.

Watching a man ignite himself into flames is a disturbing sight, as Holland shows viewers in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately, Palach does not die immediately, but lingers on life support for three days. Having left multiple letters of protest, there was no question why Palach did what he did. As he hoped, the student movement is emboldened to call for a general strike. The government swings into full panic mode, fearing more will follow his example. The Party’s heavy-handed techniques do not sit well with Police Major Jireš, but his ostensive subordinate is more than willing to do the dirty work he assumes will advance his career.

As months pass, Palach’s fragile mother, Libuše Palachová, becomes the target of a ruthless harassment campaign. When a hardline member of parliament publicly slanders Palach at a regional CP conference, the Palach family decides to file suit, but finding a lawyer willing to accept their case is a difficult proposition. Eventually, Dagmar Burešová agrees to take the case, but it will cost her family dearly.

Although Palach appears relatively briefly in Burning Bush, his absence is felt keenly throughout.  He is the missing man—the ghost at the banquet. However, his mother and her advocate are very much of and in the world as it was, and must carry on as best they can. Frankly, Burning Bush will be nothing less than revelatory for many viewers.  Typically films dealing with the Prague Spring and subsequent Soviet invasion end in 1968, with a happier 1989 postscript frequently appended to the end.  However, Holland and screenwriter Štĕpán Hulík train their focus on the nation’s absolutely darkest days.

A onetime protégé and close collaborator of Andrzej Wajda, Holland has vividly addressed the Communist experience with films like The Interrogation and To Kill a Priest, while also finding tremendous American success directing leading-edge HBO programs like The Wire and Treme. On paper, Holland sounds like the perfect director for this project, yet she manages to exceed expectations with a clear-cut career masterwork.

There is considerable scale to Burning Bush, but it is intimately engrossing. Viewers acutely share the fear and pain of the Palach family and marvel the Bureš family’s matter-of-fact defiance. Somehow Holland simultaneous builds the suspense, as Burešová methodically exposes the Party’s lies and deceits, as well as a mounting sense of high tragedy, as the secret police rig the system against her.

Jaroslava Pokorná’s turn as Palach’s mother is not merely a performance, it is an indictment viewers will feel in their bones. It is a convincingly harrowing portrayal of a woman nearly broken by the Communist state.  Likewise, Petr Stach conveys all the inner conflicts roiling inside Jiří Palach, the brother forced to hold himself together for the sake of his family (and arguably his country). Ivan Trojan’s increasingly disillusioned Major Jireš adds further depth and dimension to the film. Although it is the “glamour” role, Tatiana Pauhofová still scores some impressive moments as Burešová, particularly with Jan Budař as her husband Radim Bureš.

Chosen by the Czech Republic as its official foreign language submission to the Academy Awards, but disqualified because it was originally produced for Czech HBO, Burning Bush is either excellent cinema or outstanding television, depending on how chose to categorize it. Although its 234 minute running time might sound intimating, it is a blisteringly tight and tense viewing experience.  An important but deeply moving work, Burning Bush opens today at Film Forum, screening in two parts, covered by one total admission charge.

NYFF ’13: Burning Bush

Tourists visiting Prague’s Rudolfinum concert hall will find themselves in Jan Palach Square.  The newest public square in the Old Town quarter, it was known as Square of Red Army Soldiers during the grim era of Communism.  An earnest university student, Palach sacrificed his life to re-awaken opposition to the Soviet occupation of 1968 (those very same Red Army Soldiers), eventually becoming a galvanizing symbol of the Velvet Revolution.

Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland was also studying in the then Czechoslovakia when Palach self-immolated on Wenceslas Square.  She shared the feelings of inspiration, frustration, and rage that swept across the country in the days that followed.  The tenor of those oppressive times is masterfully captured in Holland’s Burning Bush (trailer here), a highly cinematic three-night miniseries produced for HBO Europe, which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Watching a man ignite himself into flames is a disturbing sight, as Holland shows viewers in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately, Palach does not die immediately, but lingers on life support for three days. Having left multiple letters of protest, there was no question why Palach did what he did. As he hoped, the student movement is emboldened to call for a general strike. The government swings into full panic mode, fearing more will follow his example. The Party’s heavy-handed techniques do not sit well with Police Major Jireš, but his ostensive subordinate is more than willing to do the dirty work he assumes will advance his career.

As months pass, Palach’s fragile mother, Libuše Palachová, becomes the target of a ruthless harassment campaign. When a hardline member of parliament publicly slanders Palach at a regional CP conference, the Palach family decides to file suit, but finding a lawyer willing to accept their case is a difficult proposition. Eventually, Dagmar Burešová agrees to take the case, but it will cost her family dearly.

Although Palach appears relatively briefly in Burning Bush, his absence is felt keenly throughout.  He is the missing man—the ghost at the banquet. However, his mother and her advocate are very much of the world as it was, and must carry on as best they can. Frankly, Burning Bush will be nothing less than revelatory for many viewers.  Typically films dealing with the Prague Spring and subsequent Soviet invasion end in 1968, with a happier 1989 postscript frequently appended to the end.  However, Holland and screenwriter Štĕpán Hulík train their focus on the nation’s absolutely darkest days.

A onetime protégé and close collaborator of Andrzej Wajda, Holland has vividly addressed the Communist experience with films like The Interrogation and To Kill a Priest, while also finding tremendous American success directing leading-edge HBO programs like The Wire and Treme. On paper, Holland sounds like the perfect director for this project, yet she manages to exceed expectations with a clear-cut career masterwork.

There is considerable scale to Burning Bush, but it is intimately engrossing. Viewers acutely share the fear and pain of the Palach family and marvel the Bureš family’s matter-of-fact defiance. Somehow Holland simultaneous builds the suspense, as Burešová methodically exposes the Party’s lies and deceits, as well as a mounting sense of high tragedy, as secret police rig the system against her.

Jaroslava Pokorná’s turn as Palach’s mother is not merely a performance, it is an indictment viewers will feel in their bones. It is a convincingly harrowing portrayal of a woman nearly broken by the Communist state.  Likewise, Petr Stach conveys all the inner conflicts roiling inside Jiří Palach, the brother forced to hold himself together for the sake of his family (and arguably his country). Ivan Trojan’s increasingly disillusioned Major Jireš adds further depth and dimension to the film. Although it is the “glamour” role, Tatiana Pauhofová still scores some impressive moments as Burešová, particularly with Jan Budař as her husband Radim Bureš.

Chosen by the Czech Republic as its official foreign language submission to the Academy Awards, Burning Bush is either excellent cinema or outstanding television, depending on how chose to categorize it. Although its 234 minute running time might sound intimating, it is a blisteringly tight and tense viewing experience.  An important but deeply moving work, it is the one true can’t miss selection of this year’s NYFF, especially since its length makes it such a challenge to program.  At this point only stand-by tickets are available, but it is worth trying your luck when the exceptional Burning Bush screens this Friday (10/4) and the following Wednesday (10/9).

Wajda’s Korczak

Janusz Korczak was like the Polish Dr. Seuss, Dr. Spock, and Father Flanagan combined.  He was born Henryk Goldszmit—a name that would prove fatal during the National Socialist occupation.  Master Polish director Andrzej Wajda became one of his first filmmaking countrymen to forthrightly address the Holocaust, following the brave example of his protégé and frequent screenwriter Agnieszka Holland with 1990’s Korczak (trailer here), which is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Classics.

Korczak/Goldszmit devoted his life to children.  He was a popular children’s author and radio broadcaster, whose show was rather summarily canceled in the late thirties for sadly obvious reasons.  Though removed from the public eye, Korczak continued to serve his beloved children as the benevolent headmaster of a progressive orphanage.  A gentle gentleman by nature, Korczak loyally served as a doctor in the Polish Army, but nobody would have mistaken him for a military man.  Yet, as the Germens marched through the streets, he refused to relinquish his uniform when so many others did.   As viewers soon see, Korczak always did things the honorable way—the hard way.

Part of the agony of Korczak is watching the good doctor and his associates refusing to believe the situation is as bad as viewers know it is.  Of course, the scale and systemization of the National Socialist death machine still remain hard to process.  Yet, by 1942, enough escapees had sent word back to the ghetto that most of the involuntary residents would have a general idea what to expect from the concentration camps.  Nonetheless, despite offers of counterfeit papers, Dr. Korczak refuses to leave his children.  He had no use for one fake passport.  He would need over two hundred.

Many have identified Korczak as a significant inspiration for Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.  Shrewdly, the DVD cover prominently displays his unqualified endorsement.  While both films profile heroic individuals, Korczak has absolutely no sentimental uplift to placate shallower viewers.  It ends as it ended.  Nonetheless, Wajda, again filming a Holland screenplay, ventures into more expressionistic territory in his final scene, perhaps representing idyllic afterlife not so strongly defined in the Judaic tradition Korczak never closely identified with (a stylistic decision Wajda took some heat for at the time of its initial release).

Wojciech Pszoniak gives one of the defining performances of the immediate post-Communist era.  Yes, the Korczak viewers initially meet seems impossibly kind and virtuous.  Yet, as the doctor endures pain and humiliation for the sakes of his charges, Pszniak makes his anguish vividly clear.   Being a saint is trying burden.

Korczak also boasts a talented ensemble cast of pre-teen actors.  Their complex relationships with each other feel very real and human.  Conversely, those of Korczak’s colleagues are not as well established.  Still, Ewa Dalkowska has some touching moments as Stefa Wilczynska, a former Korczak alumnus, who returned from the safety of “Palestine” to assist the doctor and his children during their hour of need.

Robby Müller’s black-and-white cinematography is absolutely arresting.  Its influence on Schindler is unmistakable.  Despite the deliberate lack of on-screen horrors, it is a draining film to watch.  It is also exactly the sort of story that would have been impossible to depict under the recently deposed Communist regime, which had steadfastly relegated the Holocaust to the Orwellian memory hole.  Along with his visceral Katyn, Korczak represents an important burst of creative truth telling from Wajda and Holland.  Highly recommended, it is now on-sale at all major online retailers.

Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness

Compared to the sewers of Lvov, Anne Frank’s attic would have seemed comparatively bright and airy. Nevertheless, those inhuman living conditions led to a greater survival rate than the famous house in Amsterdam. Master Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland dramatizes the true story of a roguish sewer worker who became one of the righteous by sheltering a small group of Jews beneath the city’s ghetto in In Darkness (trailer here), Poland’s ninth Oscar nomination for best foreign language film, which opens this Friday in New York.

An ex-con working amid Lvov’s sewage, Leopold Socha hardly cut a heroic figure. Nor were he and his crony above a bit of wartime plundering. However, his heart was never with the prevailing powers, as the audience learns when a young fascist interrupts their extracurricular activities. Since no proper German would debase themselves in the sewers, it makes a perfect hiding place for their loot. As it happens, a small band of Jews about to be deported to the concentration camps had a similar idea.

Although there is a standing bounty for any Jews he might discover, Socha initially extorts protection money from them. However, as he comes to know them as individuals, Socha starts to protect them in earnest. Thrown together under unimaginable circumstances, “Socha’s Jews” as he comes to think of them, are an often contentious lot, carrying the baggage of their jealousies and resentments.

Indeed, Holland and screenwriter David F. Shamoon repeatedly emphasize the point one need not be a saint to do the right thing. Likewise, the messy character flaws on display in no way mitigate profound injustice of their situation.

A former assistant to Andrzej Wajda, Holland returns to the grim, naturalistic aesthetic of her early Polish films, like A Lonely Woman. She captures a vividly sense of that dark, claustrophobic existence in the sewers. Even the relatively long 145 minute running time is a deliberate strategy to convey the sensation of confinement.

Again, Holland clearly handled her cast with finely attuned sensitivity, coaxing nuanced performances from them while they were restricted to dank, murky spaces. As Socha, Robert Wieckiewicz convincingly conveys his moral awakening. Arguably though, the breakout star turn comes from Benno Fürmann (probably best known to American audience for the historical mountaineering drama North Face and the Wachowskis’ unfortunate Speed Racer), truly dynamic and intense as Mundek Margulies, a former criminal among “Socha’s Jews,” who might be an even greater scoundrel, but directly prods the reluctant protector to unforeseen heights of courage.

Granted, Darkness might not hold a lot of surprises in store for historically aware viewers, but Holland adroitly expresses the tragedy and bitter irony of Poland’s wartime and immediate post-war experiences. It is often a tough film to watch, but it is not merely well intentioned. It is also well executed. In fact, it is probably the only foreign language Academy Award contender with an outside chance of upsetting Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation. A worthy companion to Holland’s Europa, Europa, Darkness definitely deserves an audience when it opens this Friday (2/10) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Storm Warnings: A Lonely Woman

If a filmmaker with artistic integrity working behind the Iron Curtain never ran afoul of the state censors, they probably were doing something wrong. Based on that logic, Agnieszka Holland’s A Lonely Woman was a rousing success, as both film and director were banned in Poland shortly after its initial release. Screening as part of the Lincoln Center Film Society’s Storm Warnings: Resistance and Reflection in Polish Cinema 1977-1989 retrospective, it serves as a vivid reminder of how grim life was under the Communist system.

Irena and her son literally live on the wrong side of the tracks, in a decrepit one-room apartment. It might not be much, but the landlord is still trying to force her out, resentful that the Party forced them on him. One day the exhausted Irena collapses while walking her beat as a postal carrier. She literally falls into the arms of Jacek, a former miner living on his disability pension after a workplace accident. He might not be much either, but he is smitten with the plain-looking single mother.

Jacek supplements his meager income by charging to shop for his neighbors, capitalizing on his line-cutting privileges. Queuing is a definite motif in Lonely. So are callous bureaucrats, who plague Irena’s unremarkable life. The harassed mother attempts to petition the Communist Party for redress, but is rebuffed and threatened with arrest. Her superiors at the postal service try to reassign her beat to deny her the meager tips she garners from the many pensioners are her route. Squeezed from every angle, Irena eventually snaps. Suddenly, Lonely veers into Godard territory, as Irena resorts to a desperate (and criminal) flight for freedom that resembles a grim, grey, Communist version of Breathless.

Except for a hint of natural realism at its conclusion, Lonely is a relentlessly naturalistic film. It is a visceral indictment of the system that repeatedly betrays Irena, the very sort of underdog it claimed to protect. Maria Chwalibóg gives a heartrending performance in an unflattering and often unsympathetic role. As Jacek, Boguslaw Linda is pathos personified. Indeed, considering the state reaction to the film, their performances were brave in more than just an artistic sense.

Watching Lonely is not a happy experience per se, but it is clearly a passionate film. A film that is finely crafted and acted should not be considered depressing, no matter how great the misery and pessimism it depicts. A Lonely Woman screens Sunday (2/7) and Thursday (2/11) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Holland at MoMA: The Interrogation

Considering how many of her films challenged the authoritarian rule of Poland’s Communist government, it is a near miracle the great Polish actress Krystyna Janda was allowed any career at all. She would indeed appear in several films which ran afoul of state censors, including Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble, and Rough Treatment, written by Agnieszka Holland. Janda also co-starred with Holland in Ryszard Bugajski’s The Interrogation, which explains its inclusion in MoMA’s retrospective of Holland’s films, now in its closing days.

In Stalinist Poland, even if you tried to avoid politics, political troubles found you. Based on the actual experiences of two Polish women, Janda’s Tonia Dziwisz is a case in point. After a fight with her husband, Dziwisz allows two supposed fans to take her out on the town. However, after plying her with alcohol, they take the oblivious Dziwisz to the secret police headquarters.

As she comes to, Dziwisz assumes she was arrested by mistake, having never shown an interest in politics. However, during her initial interrogation sessions, she quickly figures out she is there as a pawn in a wider campaign to discredit her former lover, the unseen Col. Olcha, a military officer who has clearly fallen out of favor. Despite signing an ill-advised confession in hopes of a quick release, she refuses to implicate her ex-flame, setting the stage for years of mental and physical torture.

Interrogation proceeds to give a literal blow-by-blow of the secret police’s process for humiliating and breaking their subjects. It is not a pretty sight. At first, Dziwisz seems to get better treatment from the punctilious Major Zawada in charge of her case than from his contemptuous Lieutenant Morawski. However, Morawski’s ideals are shaken by Dziwisz’s ordeal. Having survived a concentration camp, he now finds himself in the role of state tormentor. In an admittedly credibility challenged plot turn, he and Dziwisz even become furtive lovers.

As for Holland, she plays that dreaded individual, the ideological fanatic. When not snitching on her cell-mates, she defends their unjust imprisonment, including her own, as a sacrifice on behalf of Communism. Holland spent most of her career behind the camera, not in front of it, but she is scarily believable as the ice-cold true believer.

Completed mere days before martial law was declared in Poland, Interrogation was duly banned shortly thereafter. It is not an easy film to watch, but it is a powerful viewing experience. Anchored by Janda’s harrowing performance (probably her best screen work), Interrogation is an intense indictment of the Communist system, particularly of the Stalinist era, but also of its own time, by clear implication. It screens again tonight at the MoMA.

Holland at MoMA: A Lonely Woman

If a filmmaker with artistic integrity working behind the Iron Curtain never ran afoul of the state censors, they probably were doing something wrong. Based on that logic, Agnieszka Holland’s A Lonely Woman was a rousing success, as both film and director were banned in Poland shortly after its initial release. Screening today as part of the MoMA’s Holland retrospective, it serves as a vivid reminder of how grim life was under the Communist system.

Irena and her son literally live on the wrong side of the tracks, in a decrepit one-room apartment. It might not be much, but the landlord is still trying to force her out, resentful that the Party forced them on him. One day the exhausted Irena collapses while walking her beat as a postal carrier. She literally falls into the arms of Jacek, a former miner living on his disability pension after a workplace accident. He might not be much either, but he is smitten with the plain-looking single mother.

Jacek supplements his meager income by charging to shop for his neighbors, capitalizing on his line-cutting privileges. Queuing is a definite motif in Lonely. So are callous bureaucrats, who plague Irena’s unremarkable life. She attempts to petition the Communist Party for redress, but is rebuffed and threatened with arrest. Her superiors at the postal service try to reassign her beat to deny her the meager tips she garners from the many pensioners are her route. Squeezed from every angle, Irena eventually snaps. Suddenly, Lonely veers into Godard territory, as Irena resorts to a desperate (and criminal) flight for freedom that resembles a grim, grey, Communist version of Reckless.

Except for a hint of natural realism at its conclusion, Lonely is a relentlessly naturalistic film. It is a visceral indictment of the system that repeatedly betrays Irena, the very sort of underdog it claimed to protect. Maria Chwalibóg gives a heartrending performance in an often unflattering and unsympathetic role. As Jacek, Boguslaw Linda is pathos personified. Considering the state reaction to the film, their performances were brave in more than just an artistic sense.

Watching Lonely is not a happy experience per se, but it is clearly a passionate film. A film that is finely crafted and acted should not be considered depressing, no matter how great the misery and pessimism it depicts. So have a happy new year watching A Lonely Woman this evening at MoMA.

Holland at MoMA: Europa, Europa

Getting outclassed by the Hollywood Foreign Press is pretty pathetic, but that is what happened to the Academy Awards with Agnieszka Holland’s Europa, Europa. More than even Hoop Dreams, it serves as a lingering rebuke of the arbitrary rules established by the Academy in the specialized categories. In a year when Holland’s film was universally hailed as a masterpiece and did indeed win the Golden Globe for best foreign film, the governing German film authority refused to submit it for consideration for the best foreign language Oscar. Coincidentally, it happened to be about the Holocaust. Screening as part of the MoMA’s continuing Holland retrospective, Europa (trailer here) still holds up as a superior film, even in a season notable for a surplus of Holocaust related pictures (of widely varying quality).

Solomon Perel was an ordinary thirteen year old who had the bad fortune to come of age in the Europe of the late 1930’s. After losing a sister during Kristallnacht his father looks East for sanctuary. Born in Lodz, he hastily arranges Polish citizenship for his family, but it is only a temporary reprieve. When the Germans and Soviets partition Poland, he sends Perel and his brother Isaak east again. Separated from Isaak, Perel is taken in by a Soviet orphanage, where he parrots Communist ideology, eventually joining the Komsomol. Again fate intervenes, when he violates the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact.

Now accustomed to living by his wits, the native German-speaking Perel convinces the German army he is a purebred Aryan. Initially adopted as the company’s translator and mascot, Perel is eventually sent to Berlin to join the Hitler Youth as a reward for his presumed battlefield heroics. Living in a state of constant paranoia, Perel falls in love with a hardcore National Socialist girl (which might seem implausible, but she is played by Julie Delpy), yet is unable to consummate his courtship for fear his body would betray him in a moment of intimate contact. He would somehow escape many close calls to tell his tale, as Europa is in fact based on his memoir.

Perel survived the war hiding in the bellies of both Twentieth Century beasts, and Europa illustrates clear similarities between the two. Both the National Socialist and Communist schools are shown to be more about indoctrination than education. Both preach forms of hate, directed either against religion and class enemies, or the Jews.

In Holland’s hands, Europa becomes an epic story of survival, viewed from an intensely intimate perspective. While some scenes might feel a bit contrived, several are unforgettable, like a rare moment of humanity Perel shares with the mother of his Aryan girlfriend. Also the sequences in which Perel tries to fix his anatomical tell are physically painful to watch. Just how good an actor Marco Hofschneider is might be debatable, but his appearance of being constantly overwhelmed by events around him is actually perfect for the role of young Perel.

When initially released, Europa was somewhat controversial for depicting a Jewish character surviving (and at times even thriving) as a member of the Hitler Youth. However, Europa never glamorizes any aspect of National Socialism. To the contrary, it depicts Nazi society as sick and depraved. It is a memorable journey through the horrific ideologies of the Twentieth Century that ought to have a little gold Oscar statuette to its credit. It screens again Friday the second and Wednesday the seventh, as the Holland retrospective continues at MoMA.

Holland at MoMA: To Kill a Priest

The face of evil is usually all too prosaic. Such is the case in To Kill a Priest, the first of three fruitful collaborations (so far) between the Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland and American actor Ed Harris. Released in 1989, To Kill a Priest (trailer here) is also her most misunderstood film. It is indeed inspired by the assassination of the pro-Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko, who really was kidnapped and murdered by members of the Polish Security Police with the winking approval of their superiors. However, the nature of Holland’s assassin, played by Harris, is often misinterpreted. Screening tomorrow as part of the MoMA’s Holland retrospective, it might be the film in her oeuvre most overdue for a critical re-examination.

Harris’s true-believing Captain Stefan leads the Fourth Division of the secret police charged with monitoring religious activity. His number one target is Father Alek, an earnest young Roman Catholic priest modeled on Popieluszko (and played by a stiffly miscast Christopher Lambert), who openly criticizes Communist oppression from the pulpit. Not taking kindly to such counter-revolutionary sedition, the Captain tries to trump up a criminal case against the Father. Failing that, he obtains tacit permission from his section Colonel to run a black bag operation to solve their problem once and for all.

Much is made of the secret policeman’s love for his family and heartfelt defense of socialist values, as if this ameliorates his guilt for killing Father Alek in cold blood. Yet, such thinking is deeply flawed. Theologically, evil is not considered the opposite of good, but rather its perversion. Harris’s character is evil for choosing ideology over humanity. It is an ideology that compels him to terrorize his own family, painting gallows and nooses on the door of his flat, while blaming neighbors sympathetic to Solidarity. He has deliberately poisoned his family with fear and paranoia, and murdered the innocent, rationalizing his crime as a means to insure: “that my son can grow up to be a good Communist.”

This might be Ed Harris’s best on-screen performance, capturing the nervous energy of a tightly wound, but all too ordinary monster. He is joined by a very talented cast, including Joss Ackland, Tim Roth, Joanne Whalley, Pete Postlethwaite, and David Suchet, many of whom were cast by Holland before there became well-known actors, proving her eye for prospective talent.

Priest is more deliberate than most political thrillers, but more action driven than typical arthouse fare. While the drab look of the film might have been true to the Communist reality, it gets to be a chore on the eyes. Still, Holland infuses many scenes with tremendous power, as when the confirmed atheist Captain teaches his Colonel how to cross himself. Arguably, the sum of Priest’s parts is greater than its whole, but that still offers much for viewers to chew on.

Like her mentor Andrzej Wajda, Holland was forced into a life of exile in the 1980’s. However, in recent years she has remained a world citizen of a filmmaker, directing American, French, and German productions. According to her Q&A with Harris on Wednesday night, her next project will be an HBO pilot about New Orleans musicians returning to the city. As for Harris, his next project will be a Peter Weir adaptation of The Long Walk, Polish Cavalry Officer Slavomir Rawicz’s memoir of his grueling escape from a Soviet Gulag, which would eventually make quite an interesting double feature with Priest. Holland’s first collaboration with the actor screens again this afternoon as her retrospective series continues at MoMA.

Holland at MoMA: Rough Treatment

Strictly speaking, is it even possible to be “paranoid” when living under an oppressive government? If you think the system is out to get you, eventually you’re always going to be right. Polish foreign correspondent Jerzy Michalowski comes to understand that only too well. When the protagonist of Andrzej Wajda’s Rough Treatment, written Agnieszka Holland, suddenly finds himself beset with personal and professional setbacks, it is surely no coincidence. Screening tonight as part of the MoMA’s Holland retrospective, Treatment (a.k.a. Without Anesthesia) dramatizes the Kafkaesque persecutions that were the modus operandi of the Communist Party during the Gierek years (1970-1980).

Michalowski enjoys being a public intellectual. Loosely inspired by Ryszard Kapuściński, Treatment’s protagonist has travelled the world, reporting extensively from Third World trouble spots. As played by Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Michalowski is gregarious and smugly satisfied with own success. If arrogance is too strong a term for him, he is certainly blessed with self-confidence of a magnitude that sets him up for a downfall worthy of Greek Tragedy.

Given his prestige, Michalowski is chosen as the first guest of new primetime interview show. Relishing the attention, he lets his enthusiasm carry him away, questioning how well “the mass media serves the purpose of truthful information.” This of course, is a bad career move.

After the interview no one will say anything to Michalowski directly, but subtle losses in privileges start to mount. Fully aware of the importance of each apparently minor slight, like being dropped from the circ list for American newsweeklies, the reporter protests to his network patron. However, he is unable to focus his undivided attention on his professional predicament, because of trouble on the home front. He is simultaneously challenging divorce proceedings initiated by his wife Ewa.

It is no coincidence that everything is happening at once to Michalowski. He is paying a price for his candor, slowly becoming professionally and socially persona non grata through a cold-blooded process Wajda himself closely observed when it was applied to his own professional acquaintances. Following Man of Marble during Wajda’s consciously political period of filmmaking, Treatment is clearly a protest film. Although Michalowski’s offending words are kept deliberately vague, there is no mistaking their thinly veiled meaning or the dire repercussions which they cause. On screening Treatment, it is clear why Holland and Wajda eventually found it necessary to seek employment outside of the Communist Era Poland.

Zapasiewicz gives a great performance, fully capturing both the bluster and pathos of Michalowski. Wajda and Holland depict his personal tragedy in cold, unsentimental terms. Far from hysterical, it was a lucid indictment of the then reality of Communist Poland. The state built him up, and then with little warning, the state tore him down. Although Michalowski and Treatment might be hard to love, they are unquestionably compelling to watch. A historically important film in both the Wajda and Holland canons, it screens tonight at MoMA.