home to the brave
by Douglas Messerli
Last
Tuesday I caught the last presentation of the Martin Scorese curated “Masterpieces
of Polish Cinema,” Andrzej Munk’s two-part World War II-based work, Eroica. (Heroism). Originally filmed as a three part work, the last, “The
Nun” (subtitled “Con bravura”), was cut from the final work, in part because it
simply seemed “less important” than the other two sections.
Both consider the issue of how we, or,
more particularly, the Poles might describe heroism. As the flier to the film asks: “Why
was the subject so sensitive and painful [to Poles]?”
First take into consideration
the particular history of Poland, its many
defenses against invasions,
the loss of its statehood for 150 years duringa period marked by numerous patriotic insurrections, the retrieval of
its independence. Next, factor in the defeat it suffered in 1939, only to
be followed by renewed resistance
and struggle. Consider that national-
ism, patriotism, and heroic
suffering played roles in all these epochs. henremember the valiant struggle of the Home Army, the largest resistance
group, was presented falsely,
libeled, and those who took part in that
were even victimized during
the Stalinist period, and it is no wonder thatmany people waited for some satisfaction to their sensibilities, waited for
compensation, as it were. Some justice came finally. Politicians made
gestures of appreciation, mostly reluctantly, more to bring reconciliation
than to give credit. (Bolesław Michałek and Frank Turaj)
In
short, hated as they were by both the Germans and their would-be liberators,
the Polish people, even while fighting for their survival, necessarily
perceived their actions with a large dose of irony. Heroism, although a
romantically-longed for achievement, was understandably met with skepticism and
even doubt.
The comedy of “Scherzo Alla Pollacca”
derives from the military service of Dzidziuś (Edward Dziewoński) during the
Warsaw uprising. While his platoon practices its formations, a plane circles.
Pointing it out the commander, the recruit is told to keep marching, only to
insist upon its existence once more and it circles in for the attack. By
seconds, the recruits fall out, scurrying off, with Dzidziuś facing gunfire
from all directors before he, entering a Polish-held cave, discovers a man
racing a bicycle in order to generate electricity. The whole event so
disorients the recruit that he throws down his gun and returns home through the
dangerous landscape of battle.
Once back home, he discovers his wife,
Zosia (Barbara Polomska), nearly embracing an Hungarian officer (Leon Niemczyk)
who has been billeted within their home. While recognizing the sexual betrayal
of his wife, he nonetheless toasts the interloper in an attempt to get him
drunk. Instead, as they walk back to the Hungarian’s base, the would-be enemy
(early in the War the Hungarians had joined the Axis powers) confides that his
battalion would like to join the Polish forces (Hungary secretly signed a peace
agreement with the US in 1944).
Although he wants to part in the battle,
Dzidziuś cannot but report this fact to the local authorities fighting nearby.
The local officer demands that they take this information to the Home Army
Commander in Warsaw, which, with the local officer, Dzidziuś undertakes,
despite being stopped along the way several times by Nazi officers.
Forced to take the message back to the
locals, he first becomes drunk, weaving through the battlefields on his way
home with a terrible headache. The voyage and his survival, in fact, might
remind one a bit of the peregrinations of Buster Keaton, as he almost
accidentally survives, reporting back to the local headquarters and the
Hungarians that the Home Office has denied their offer. Throughout, Dzidziuś
keeps demanding he that receive “credit” for his actions, awarded instead by
disdain and disbelief of his acts.
Returning
home, Dzidziuś again is met by the local officer who is headed back to the
front to fight. As a wartime deserter, the recruit seems determined to return
to his unfaithful wife, but encountering her, turns back to join the office on
his new adventure.
If the first half of the film is
basically a comic presentation of “heroism,” the second—although displaying
comic moments—is basically tragic. In “Ostinato Lugubre” two recently captured
Polish officers are introduced in a POW barracks where most of the officers
have been imprisoned for several years, having lost nearly all sense of morale,
some of them such as Zak (Józef Kostecki) having become almost insane. The only
thing that seeming keeps him alive is that his best friend, Lt. Zawistowski,
has apparently been able to escape from the prison, standing for all of the
prisoners as symbol of heroic possibility.
Some of the detained officers remain
devoted to military protocol, ostracizing men like Zak, who with ridiculous
rules and punishments (Zak is divvied out less food than the others), until,
fed up with the posturing his these fellow prisoners, that he walks through the
bales of barbed wire which serves as the camp retainer. Two women, however,
quickly, gather him up and bring him back to the prison gates. Unable to bear
the company of those around him, Zak retreats into a small cubicle made from a
container sent through the Geneva Convention to the prisoners.
One might be tempted to compare this short
film to Billy Wilder’s Nazi prison tale, Stalag
17, except that Munk and his writer, Jerzy Stefan Strawiński have drained
almost any humor from their tale and have refused to portray the imprisoners as
buffoons. In fact, we hardly see the Nazis, since the prisoners suffer more
from the pettiness and posturing of their peers than brutality of the Germans.
Although, as in the Wilder film, one prisoner receives a large store of
rations, rather than selling them as Sargeant Sefton might, he greedily
attempts to eat them all at one sitting, becoming sick in the process.
One of the new detainees, Kurzawa (Józef
Nowak), however, accidently uncovers a completely other dimension of barrack
life as, seeking a glass a water in the middle of the night, discovers another suffering officer, Lt. Turek
(Kazimiez Rudzki) removing a tile from the ceiling, whereupon he discovers that
the “heroic” Zawistowski has not really escaped, but is hiding in heating and
cooling ducts. Keeping the secret, Kurzawa begins to minister to the dying
Zawistowski, providing him with sleeping pills and medicine for his cough.
After another the nearly unbearable
torture of watching the greedy officer stuffing his stomach as the others spur
him off, Zak, weary of life, opens the door to the barracks and enters the
courtyard alone in prohibition of camp rules. The slowly shot scene of his
death by gunfire is nearly unbearable to watch.
Zawistowski, Kurzawa reports, has also
just died, and Turek, to whom the camp commander owes a favor, arranges for the
duct to be shipped out, the non-existent hero embedded within. Who is the true
hero, Munk’s profound film seems to ask, the would-be honorable Zawistowski,
the weary suicidal Zak, or keeper of the secret Turek. Kurzawa, the complicit
observer—like the audience itself—is left to make his own choice, just as we
are.
Los Angeles, June
26, 2014
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