ROUGH TREATMENT (BEZ ZNIECZULENIA/WITHOUT ANAESTHESIA)
Poland, 1978, 114 minutes, Colour.
Zbigniew Zapasciwicz, Ewa Dalkowska, Krystina Janda.
Directed by Andrej Wajda.
Rough Treatment is a very impressive film by Andrezj Wajda. It is interesting to note in historical retrospect that the film was released in 1979, on the eve of the Solidarity movement and changes in Poland during the 1980s.
However, this film could have been made in any country but is particularly apt for a communist-controlled country. The film focuses on a journalist, a successful journalist in Poland who covers foreign affairs. He appears on TV, talks about his travels, his opinions about world issues. However, the authorities in Warsaw decide to cut him down to size. He is no longer able to receive magazines, his trips are cancelled, he is not able to teach at the university, various privileges disappear. He also has down-spiralling experiences in his home, especially with his wife of many years leaving him and going with a younger colleague. He also has to try to relate well to his daughter, his students and friends. He is then subject to a very demanding court divorce. He then suddenly dies.
The film is grim, and while it has the surface of a television film for popular audiences, it implies quite severe criticisms of Polish government and the exercise of authority in the 1970s.
Wajda made a number of very impressive films in the 1960s including Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds, Siberian Lady Macbeth. During the 70s he continued making films successfully in Poland, especially his Man of Marble, Man of Iron and Land of Promise. He was freer during the 1980s and made The
Orchestra Conductor with John Gielgud, Holy Week, and also a film of Danton, with Gerard Depardieu. He directed his first film in 1950 and was still directing films in 2007.
Rough Treatment won the ecumenical award at the Cannes film festival in 1979.
1 The overall impact of this film? As a product of the Polish industry? Its particularly Polish interests, themes? Its universal value and values?
2. Its place within the work of Andrzej Wajda? His reputation in Poland, universally? His style - realism, documentary style? His portrait of ordinary Polish life in the '70s? Family, work. television personalities and the media, the courts? The colour photography, the score?
3. The serious outlook of the film, its tone? Insight for Poles, universally?
4. The setting of the atmosphere, the tone and characters? The television interview and the introduction of the hero - his work, bravado, style, public image? The comparison with the reality - his wife and the family watching the television, the airport meting, the looking at the program afterwards? The hero and his seeming success - the gradual revelation of his failure in himself, the break-up of his marriage, his place within his family? His inability to cope with domestic difficulty despite his world-wide travels and presence in trouble spots? The film's comment on the character who can't deal with reality but who can cope with fantasy and a larger than life situation?
5. The portrait of the hero - a middle-aged man, a representative of every man? His behaviour, reputation, adventures? His public image? His relationship to people using his public image? Inability to cope? The effect of the break-up of the marriage and his wife's reaction to him? His work and his inability to fulfil commitments? His behaviour in the court - his conceding victory to his wife? The humiliation of the experience in court and his inability to cope?
6. The portrait of the wife - watching her husband, children? Her relationship with the lover - comparisons with the husband? The lover and his idealism, unreality? Her breaking with him? A woman humiliated, trying to search for a new life? Her taking her husband to the court? Her future in view of this experience?
7. The supporting characters - family, friends? An atmosphere of realism? Understanding the central characters within the complexity of their life and relationships? Influence?
8. The melodrama of the court sequence - law, bitterness? The effect on each party in divorce proceedings?
9. The final melodrama, the disintegration of the hero? His death - suicide?
10. The overall effect of this grim film? The depth of its exploration of important themes? Marriage, family? Within a communist state and society? The universality of these themes?
