MovieChat Forums > Katyn (2007) Discussion > Wajda's strength is his weakness (the Ac...

Wajda's strength is his weakness (the Academy Awards 2008)

posted 16 years ago by couzijn
13 replies | jump to latest

No Polish filmmaker is as Polish as Wajda. No Polish director has directed his professional life more towards reporting and opinionating on present Polish affairs as Wajda has. He is the true cinematographic reporter of the Polish heartbeat. Much more so than Kieslowski, whom I love more, and who addresses and touches more general, humanitarian subjects. Kieslowski could not do what Wajda did, and what Wajda still does, judging from his newest film 'Katyn'.

It has been obvious from the start, as in 'Ashes and diamonds'. Yet even in dramatic stories like 'Panna nikt', Wajda aims at telling Poland's story. Men of marble and iron speak for themselves. And on another level, Wajda even made 'Pan Tadeusz' in order to show the world the beauty of Polish literature. And Polish drama - either literary or real.

But did he really show the world? No, I fear.

Wajda's strength is his weakness. Wajda is so taken by Polish affairs, so focused on Polish history and society, that he actually *orientates on Poles as his main audience*, not on other audiences. He wants the Polish people to be proud of his films, he counts on them to understand his films's context, their subtext, their heart. In the good European tradition, Wajda avoids to be explicative. The message is always in between the lines and scenes. As a consequence, his films factually presume a huge knowledge about Polish history an society - that simply is not there among an international audience.

I am not even talking about sympathy towards 'the Polish cause', only about simple knowledge about recent Polish history. This knowledge may be there 'wsród Polaków', but not among other European countries, and certainly not among the American audience or the American jury that hands out Academy Awards. No wonder 'Katyn' did not stand a chance at the Oscars. I think that Wajda cannot reach international audiences on any significant level - except maybe from unusually well-educated film buffs.

But Wajda is who he is, and he can and will not change. It is best for all to appreciate this great filmmaker for his many qualities, not for any quality that he may be lacking. Thus, Poles had better take him and 'Katyn' to heart, and be not too disappointed that Katyn was not fully appreciated at the Academy Awards.

Michel Couzijn
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Heartofdarkness 16 years ago

Not every director can, should or has to focus on an anglo-american audience. There are too many cultures out in the world to focus all movie production solely on a single one.

Wajda is a polish director that makes geniunly polish movies for a polish audience. He deciphers the history and events that shaped the country and it's people to what they are today. His movies put a serachlight on the Polish history - and should help people from other countries that have virtually none Polish history on their school schedules to understand and perhaps relate.

Man of Marble and Man of Steel were both supposed to highlight what was going on in Poland at that time, where the world was idly going by, not even noticing anything was up.

I'm sorry that you were disappointed - but it's history. It's not meant to be action. It's meant to be an awakening.

/H

PS. Oh, and his movies "shouldn't" be relseased anywhere else then Poland, because they are so Polish? Do you have any idea how many Poles live abroad, and want to have the opportunity to watch an honest, historical piece relating their past?

To the world you might be one person, but to one person you just might be the world

[–] couzijn 16 years ago

I did not write about focusing on anglo-american audiences in particular, but on an international audience. Like you do yourself, when you write "his movies should help people from other countries that have virtually none Polish history on their school schedules to understand and perhaps relate".

My point is that Wajda's films cannot and do not succeed in this mission. They can hardly be understood, let alone appreciated, by people with little or no knowledge about Polish history. The cause for this being that Wajda does not focus on this audience, but on fellow Poles. Intentionally or not.

The dilemma is stated in your own paragraph, in which you both include the above sentence, and "Wajda makes genuinely Polish movies for a Polish audience". I agree with that last part, but it contradicts the first. Wajda's Polish-audience orientation clearly puts limits on their 'educative' or even communicative value.

You write that his films are "not action, but meant to be an awakening". I am afraid that from this perspectives, they are alarm clocks that can only be heard by Poles - and they were already wide awake to their own history.

About international releases for international audiences: a couple of years ago I attended the European premiere of 'Pan Tadeusz'. The occasion was only attended by Poles (or maybe Poles with their non-Polish husbands and wives). I have never heard of even a single person going to this film or talking about it if he was not in any way related to Poland.

Point is: if Wajda *really* wanted to educate, enlighten and 'awaken' non-Polish people to the history of Poland, he failed. For the very reason that make his films so great for people who are already educated and sympathetic to the Polish cause. Actually I believe that the director Wajda wanted to mean much more to the Polish people than to any international audience.

Michel Couzijn
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

[–] Heartofdarkness 16 years ago

Well, history IS complicated, and would there be half as much eastern European history taught in schools outside of the region itself today, then Wajda's movies wouldn't be hard to follow at all.

I often take foreign friends to watch Polish movies, and yes, I have to explain a lot of background history to them, because they don't come carrying it with them, as they do Western history, but they learn to appreciate the complexity shown in the historical views pictured not only by Wajda.

Is Katyn (as most of Wajda's movies) very hard to follow? Yes, without a doubt. It's nevertheless very important for people, especially that do not have the historical background of Poland and/or Central-Eastern Europe with them, to go and see the movie, and perhaps be spurred into looking further into the matter.

Central and eastern Europe is so often forgotten in Western education and history, it's like it was never there. But nobody can simplify history for the mean of entertainment. You can alwas just take the movie for what it is, and look up the historical background before or after seeing it.

/H

To the world you might be one person, but to one person you just might be the world

[–] couzijn 11 years ago

What do kids in your country learn about Dutch history? About Belgian history? About Swiss, Austrian, Greek or Swedish history?

I guess not much more than what our kids learn in school about Polish history.

[–] Pure-Form 16 years ago

"So Poles had better take him and 'Katyn' to heart, and be not too disappointed that Katyn was not fully appreciated at the Academy Awards. "

I am not disappointed at all!

[–] warsawer 16 years ago

I can see your point, but it stands only if one assumes that Wajda made this film for the sole purpose of getting Oscar.

Wajda once said that to make a movie one has to have a story to tell. He doesn't teach history in any of his films. If one doesn't know the history of Poland one won't understand either Katyn or Kanal or Ashes and Diamonds. All three are about the same Poland's conflict with the USSR.

I can see how some stories may seem more appealing, while others rather meek, but the historical point is exactly the same in all of them. If one doesn't understand that Kanal is an anti-Soviet film it means they didn't get the story at all, even if they think they liked it.

Katyn isn't a story about the soldiers or the event itself. If one wants to know what it was about one has to learn history. It's a story about the women who have to live after Katyn in a country ruled by the USSR. It was Wajda's point. Wajda said that likely there will be many more films about Katyn, telling different stories, but it was the one *he* wanted to tell.

On the other hand, expecting that a movie will fix the shortcomings in one's education is plain silly. No Holocaust movie explains what WWII was, no WWII movie shown from the soldiers' POV explains it either. They are all stories told with the assumption that one knows the background. Just as Cold Mountain doesn't explain what the American Civil War was about, and it was only a local conflict after all.

If someone doesn't care to know about Katyn it means that they like being ignorant, but then they shouldn't watch the movie.

I'm not disappointed that Katyn didn't get Oscar. I think that those that don't are far better than those that do. :D

[–] orbit991 16 years ago

It's disappointing to read that some cant seem to enjoy a good film just because it has non Anglo history in it, a subject that has been beaten to death by Hollywood and the British film industry. Personally I enjoy even the most obscure of story's as one can actually learn something outside of hes everyday surrounding's. Iranian films are quite good, even though I don't exactly relate to these folks, Kurosawa made excellent films despite being of a totally foreign culture to me. I don't get it, a good film with a good story is what it's about, you guys need to open your minds up a bit.

[–] Strausszek 16 years ago

If Katyn had been tailored for an American mass audience it would have been more overtly about the soldiers, and it would have had some hero officer who gets the word, or guesses, what the Cheka are planning, and tries to stir his fellow prisoners to resist or mount some´kind of escape. With that, you'd get the well-known thriller element, seen in thousands of films since the cowboy riding to save the lady lashed to the railway lines. But Wajda's films (like Ken Loach's or Kieszlowski's) are not mainly about daredevil individual bravado, they deal with moral struggle and often with situations where it's hard to find any plain "good" solution.

A straightforward "action and suspense" Katyn film would have been a bit like Where Eagles Dare, and most probably not credible in terms of acting. Wajda made the sensible choice of not putting a single, direct focus on the spring of 1940, but of delving into the people - ordinary Poles - who had to live with the unease, the silence and the lies (the massacre remained something you simply didn't discuss openly in Poland right up till 1989!)

I think this was a movie that had to be made, and if it will be his last major film then it's a good finishing stone.

[–] killacam-2 16 years ago

My problem with Wajda is that he always focused on Polish themes only, unlike Kieslowski & Polanski who made universal movies. However, criticizing him for making this type of movies, is like criticizing Kurosawa of making films about Japan,Antonioni making movies about Italians or Spike Lee making movies about blacks. I had absolutely no problem with understanding Katyn, Man of Marble (maybe cause I made great research about communist propaganda in Eastern Europe before) or Ashes and Diamonds. Pan Tadeusz & Zemsta are adaptaions of Polish historic novels, so it's a big mistake to ditribute them to worldwide audiences. A good movie is a good movie. Katyn is neither masterpiece, nor it deserves all bashing on this board, it gets.

[–] Digitalimage 16 years ago

Indeed trying to place the Holywood "magic" in a film like this would sell out the political and inherent social value of the film as a historic reference to Poles themselves. The Hollywood story is more about the actions than the people.

For example to get the Hollywood audience going ( on a film thrill ride )
the opening scene would have to be rewitten.

The premise of two groups of people meeting quitely on a bridge with opposing armies chasing them is an understated fact for the Polish. For the Hollywood crowd to experience this first scene , the writers would have to put in people fighting , children falling off the bridge , scenes of Russian soldiers shooting people, as well as Nazi soldiers machine gunning victims from the other side.

Then as the people fight each other to cross the bridge to Freedom; a train from eastern Poland rushes through the crowd , knocking people off the bridge ( holywood is taking notice) as a train from western Poland doing the same thing from the opposite direction has a Head on impact in the middle of the bridge with the other escaping train -- throwing bodies everywhere --scene one rewrite done --- do you really want this ?

now you having the opening scene to an oscar winning movie --- but you have sacrificed the meaning behind the film with sences like this .....

[–] deeveed 15 years ago

The OP makes some good points but in the end I disagree with the conclusion.
Wajda's "Polishness" is in fact the reason he is an accomplished film maker and at the same time a visual historian. he is a pole and that's his center. His work, like all artists, comes from his inner identity. I think his exposition of Poland's sorrows is a stand-in for all in other countries of the world who surely at one time or another can empathize and relate to the events he portrays in his films. He is a chronicler of the human condition under war and those who live "under the boot". His work is always "contemporary" and has soemthing to say against those who attack freedon. Freedom isn't cheap with him and he knows it comes with a price.

[–] couzijn 8 years ago

Even though you say you disagree, I agree with many of the points you make. Yet I would not say that 'Wajda's exposition of Poland's sorrows *is* a stand-in for all in other countries', but that it *could be* such stand-in. If only people in other countries would recognize it as such.

But they usually don't. And that is a fact.

I guess that you are a European (like me) and have a christian, maybe catholic background (like me). Your nationality may well be directly related to this Greatest Tragedy that befell Europe in recent times, World War Two. With the historical knowledge that *you* have, you are able to recognize the more universal relevance of Wajda's movies, and the human experiences and dilemma's presented therein.

Yet I suspect that the Japanese, or the Americans, or Libyians, or Mexicans, or Kenyians, who all know the realities of war too, are unable to recognize and appreciate the relevance of Wajda's work. Because it takes far too much background knowledge to understand what is going on. That is really great with a Polish audience (such as my wife) but not so great with a non-Polish audience who need a lot of explanations (such as me).

Even though - we agree on that - the message is rather universal and applicable to many cultures & conflicts worldwide. Yet the recognition of this quality is not a given.