PORNOGRAFIA

Poland, 2003, 115 minutes, Colour.
Krzysztof Majchrzak, Adam Ferency, Sandra Samos.
Directed by Jan Jakub Kolski.

Pornografia is based on a famous novel written by Witold Gombrowicz. The title is misleading when people expect a film called Pornography to be about sexual behaviour. Instead, this is a very meditative film, using the styles of eastern European directors, especially Tarkovski and Kieslowski. The film is very stylish in its photography, editing and pace?

The film focuses on Poland in 1943, the same time as Roman Polanski's The Pianist. However, this film is a world away from the Warsaw ghetto. Two middle-aged intellectuals go to the countryside and stay during 1943 on a country estate. The family on the estate is wealthy, have servants, plenty of food. The war seems a long way away. However, there is a local partisan chief to protect the people.

The pornography consists in the two men forming a plan to bring two young people together, even though that is not the intention of the young people. The lad works as a servant. The girl is the daughter of the house and engaged to a lawyer. The two men are quite sinister, especially Fryderyk who is mysterious, enigmatic, prone to abstraction. However, he emerges as particularly cruel as the events go by. The violence of the war seems at a distance but orders come from Warsaw to kill the head of the partisans who is now overcome by fear. There is a bloodstained ending which is not expected.

The film gives an explanation of the mentality of Fryderyk, his having been married to a Jewish woman, abandoned her, and lost his daughter. He himself had letters from a concentration camp but at one stage uses a machine to get rid of them. While this is the explanation on paper, the actor portraying him is so sinister that it is hard to understand what is actually going on.

The film would have great impact in eastern Europe, with people familiar with the events and with the styles of film-making.

1. The title? Its reference to the behaviour of Fryderyk and Witold? Their manipulating people? Their deceiving people? Cruel games?

2. Poland 1943, Warsaw, the country estate? A place of serenity from the war? The interiors, the dining room, the lofts? The exteriors with the open fields? The musical score? The quality of the photography? The changes of pace, moving to a more slow and contemplative style?

3. The credits, the child dancing on the feet of her father? The end and the explanation that this is Fryderyk, that he had abandoned his Jewish wife, lost his daughter, gone to a concentration camp but been able to get away? Sufficient motivation for his behaviour?

4. The character of Fryderyk, his sudden appearance, his comments about himself and his looks, looking in the mirror? Friendship with Witold? His plans, going away to the country estate, his relationship with the owner, the family? At meals, his manipulating conversation? His decision to manipulate Henia and Karol? The encounters with the head of the partisans? His continually having Witold in his confidence, getting Witold to do things? At church, his trance? In the fields? In the house? His sinister look? The discussions with Witold about the meaning of life? His atheism? Witold as a strong character himself, over-influenced by Fryderyk, participating in his manipulation? The setting up of the rehearsal for the theatre piece and getting the fiancee to see it and interpret it in a different manner? The deadly results of this manipulation?

5. Hipolit, master of the estate, his relationship with his family? With the partisans? Getting orders, the discussion about who should kill the officer? The execution? His wife, nice, at the table, managing the house, her secret drinking, her odd behaviour when drunk, the clash with her husband?

6. Waclow as a lawyer, engaged to Henia, his good manners, his presence in the house? His mother's arrival? The preparation for the marriage? The mother's sudden death, the young man who killed her with the knife in the kitchen in getting the cake? Her death? Waclow and his inability to cope with his mother's death, asking advice, Fryderyk and his brutal advice about survival? Their taking Waclow to see the play rehearsal, his misinterpreting it? His getting worse in health, psychologically? Volunteering to do the execution? The irony of his doing it and his being killed by mistake?

7. Henia and Karol, friends from schooldays as they were with Waclow? Henia as a flirt, the soldier? Relationship with Karol? Telling everything to Witold? Her skittish behaviour, the rehearsals with Karol? The decision about the murder, her volunteering, knocking on the door? Karol, his working, a good young man, his volunteering to do the killing, his killing Waclow?

8. The servants, relationships, the young man imprisoned after the killing of Waclow's mother? Weronika and her relationship with him?

9. The partisan chief, his role in the war, his place in the household, people disliking him, the orders coming for his death? His discussion about his fear? His being murdered?

10. A particular Polish perception of the war, the focus on Catholics and their life in the village? The atheists? A picture of a Poland abstracted from the problems of the war and of the Jewish question?