Pod mocnym aniolem (The Mighty Angel) - Wojciech Smarzowski

già il grande Wojciech Has, con Petla, aveva messo al centro un uomo alcolista come pochi, Wojciech Smarzowski fa lo stesso, in un film che fa soffrire come pochi altri film, senza scorciatoie e sorrisi.

Robert Wieckiewicz, attore bravissimo (come tutti, d'altronde), già Walesa nel film di Andrzej Wajda, è il protagonista del film, intellettuale di successo col vizio del bere.

sta in un ospedale per alcolizzati, e di ciascuno dei colleghi d'ospedale conosceremo la storia.

di Wojciech Smarzowski non si sa praticamente niente in Italia, come del cinema polacco, uno dei più vivi d'Europa.

meno male che c'è internet (e i sottotitoli, sempre siano lodati quei pazzi che li fanno).

cercate questo film, soffrirete, ma ne vale la pena.

Wojciech Smarzowski fa Cinema, segnatevi il nome, se vi volete bene.

buone visioni - Ismaele

The films from Polish filmmaker Wojciech Smarzowski are always interesting to follow, no matter what theme he chooses – whether the dark crime thriller of “The Dark House”, the humorous drama of “The Wedding”, the coldness of war in “Rose”, or the severe accusations of corruption and power abuse made by Polish police in “Traffic Department” – each of them had something valuable to say in its harshness and objective rawness. “Pod Mocnym Aniolem” (translated “The Mighty Angel”) is another powerful drama focused on alcoholism and based on Jerzy Pilch’s successful fourth novel with the same title. The film follows Jerzy (Robert Wieckiewicz), an intelligent and talented writer who can’t keep off from the bottles of vodka, even doing frequent treatments in a rehabilitation house and attending group sessions. Evincing a corrosive sense of humor, his denial takes him to a cynicism and to a spiral of degradation that not even the woman of his life is capable to bear. He wanders and writes in a sort of limbo state where reality and imagination interweave. We are taken through the stories told by other alcoholics, but also to Jerzy’s memories of his drunken father. Horrible images haunt us, depicting embarrassing situations, deliriums, vomiting, and crazy hangovers. It’s a sad film, about suffering, about loss, about fate… Its finale is simply devastating, even cruel. I was touched in two ways – one given the last hope sought by Jerzy, and the other through the creepy loneliness that can ruin everything again. Although with a slow-burning start, “Pod Mocnym Aniolem” won me over.

da qui

…The Mighty Angel is not an extended sermon, it’s far more subtle and human than that. Director Wojtek Smarzowski has a keen eye for detail, for the subtle shifts in tone that mark human conversations when the subjects are trying to resist cynicism and cling to hope and compassion. This is alcoholism set within the much broader and more complex issue of heavy social drinking, which is a problem many are unwilling to discuss, not just in Europe, but in countries around the world.

The Mighty Angel is also a visually impressive film. Hand-held GoPro (point of view) shots and closed circuit video feeds are mixed with more conventional cinematic techniques to create a shifting range of perspectives. The timeline of the film often shifts, so we are often not sure at what point in the story we are, or whether the conversation is real, imagined, or reconstrucated from the drunk’s fragmented memories.

The Mighty Angel is a stark, harrowing and thoroughly intelligent look at both alcoholism and the all-pervasive place of alcohol in society. Brilliantly directed and anchored by a remarkable lead performance, The Mighty Angel is essential viewing – highly recommended.

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Polish cinephiles await Wojtek Smarzowski’s every film as impatiently as cinephiles in the USA wait for, let’s say, Quentin Tarantino’s pictures. Smarzowski is now a trademark of Polish quality cinema that can proudly be exported. He is an auteur. Surprisingly enough, after his latest success with Traffic Department (2013), his newest film The Mighty Angel (2014), an adaptation of a Jerzy Pilch novel, has been met with cold indifference and at times strong revulsion. But while Smarzowski’s newest production is yet another brilliant (yes, brilliant) piece of cinema, the reasons why it is criticised shed some light both on society’s attitude towards alcoholism and on the way in which we idealize the role of director in the collective art of filmmaking.

Between Wojciech Jerzy Has’ The Noose (1957) and The Mighty Angel, there was no remarkable film produced in Poland that tackled alcoholism in a comprehensive way. Smarzowski in his trademark sensory way reveals the worst about the disease: numerous alcoholics flood each scene with rivers of cheap spirits, vomit, urine and desperation. Rare glimpses of “normal life” – where love triumphs and people are pretty and kind – are continuously overpowered by the dark ugliness of poor living conditions and the even poorer shape of human morale. Despite being a famous writer who supposedly finds the love of his life, protagonist Jerzy is repeatedly hospitalised due to excessive drinking. Each of Jerzy’s detoxifying visits is yet another visit that should – one day – cure him completely. Certainly, refined aesthetes will shy away from almost every scene exposing the interiors of alcoholics’ stomachs. And that seems to be the problem…

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I just watched this move today. Like all movies directed by Smarzowski this is not Hollywood-like story. A story about real problem in our life - alcohol. If you ever get wasted, if you ever had hangover and if you ever had black out or hunger for drinking another shot - you would not be satisfied after watching it. It is not a romantic story about drinking problems like "When a Man Loves a Woman". It is funny at first but then you realize that you might behave the same when you drunk - then it's not funny any more. No-one laughed at the end of this movie. My wife even wanted to leave cinema without watching it till the end. But don't get me wrong- it's a great movie. It's comparable to "Requiem For A Dream" but without such great music. That's why I gave it a nine.

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Róza - Wojciech Smarzowski

un gran film, che dimostra una volta di più il grande talento di Wojciech Smarzowski e la salute del cinema polacco.
la storia è terribile, ha qualche punto di contatto con Adelheid, stesso periodo storico, con la caccia alle minoranze indifese, e in entrambe i casi alle donne, le più indifese dei deboli, ma fortissime, per sopravvivere.

Róza è Agata Kulesza, che interpreta Wanda in Ida.
un film da non perdere, promesso - Ismaele

QUI il film completo, con sottotitoli in spagnolo

I have a great admiration for Wojciech Smarzowski's work. “Rose”, his new feature film, is even murkier than “Dark House”(2009). Not so dynamic or appealing as this last one, though very compelling. With a brutal story inspired from historical facts, we can understand how the Masurian people started disappearing along the time until become completely extinct. Bleak, with strong content, this is another movie to take into account in the very solid career of a remarkable director. 

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Wojciech Smarzowski's Rose is at times so brutal that its more tender touches can startle. The 2011 film opens with Tadeusz (Marcin Dorociński) lying wounded in the ruins of World War II Warsaw, watching helplessly as the woman we guess to be his wife is raped and murdered. By the movie's end there are multiple rape scenes, in present time and in flashbacks.

But Rose is, above all, a love story. Tadeusz, now a widower, arrives in a Masurian village to tell a strange woman, Rose (Agata Kulesza), that she's also been widowed. With restrained silence, she receives a mangled photograph of her husband as proof of his death. The year is 1945, the war's end, and Poland has been plundered and burned, its fields so littered with mines that they can't be plowed. Like the landscape, Rose and Tadeusz bear deep emotional scars: he's a former Home Army soldier, a persona non grata after the communists rather than the exiled government in London take power; she's a Masur, a group of people who, as the opening caption explains, are culturally distinct but had once been subjugated by the Germans, only to find themselves at the mercy of Poles following the war. Rose mistrusts Tadeusz at first, as she does all the others. And if their romance seems somewhat inevitable, it's saved by Smarzowski's lavishing more attention on the portrait of a woman who must survive, come what may, rather than on amorous advances…

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Drogowka - Wojciech Smarzowski

Wojciech Smarzowski è uno bravo, anche qui convince molto.
il film inizia come un documentario, pensi di aver sbagliato film, in realtà è il tessuto su cui è costruita una seconda parte senza respiro, a ritmo elevatissimo.
quando Król capisce, dopo una vita passata a pensare e fare il proprio squallido tornaconto, che qualcuno più sopra fa un gioco durissimo, di cui lui è la pedina sacrificale, allora cerca la verità, che non si può né cercare né dire.
il prezzo sarà altissimo, ed è quello che dappertutto un sistema mafioso, tutto il mondo è paese, fa pagare a chi alza la testa.
il film è politicamente scorretto, qui non esistono buoni, non esiste chi può dirsi non coinvolto.
un film da non perdere, nessuno si aspetti una fine felice - Ismaele 

…Ma a tenere in piedi il comunque solido progetto di fondo è la tendenza ad un mockumentary (così detto tecnicamente) serio ma non serioso, dal montaggio serrato ma fine (con qualche insospettabile jump cut stile Godard), e improntato dal regista-sceneggiatore ad un giusto e cauto débrayage, pratica filmica che volutamente distanzia l’istanza enunciatrice da una qualsivoglia emissione di giudizi di valori…

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…L’estetica di questo film è simile al furioso rollio di una nave che affonda: un’oscillazione bagnata nel torbidume dell’abisso, che produce una vertigine priva di ebbrezza, e carica dell’affanno di una concitata agonia. La trama è una matassa che si dipana vorticosamente per poi subito riavvolgersi: il mostro indistruttibile, ferito ma non vinto, si morde la coda e la spirale di morte si chiude.  La Polonia occupa una della prime posizioni nella classifica mondiale dei paesi più corrotti: la superano solo nazioni come la Bielorussia o il Botswana. Un avvilente dato statistico che questo film traduce in una tenebrosa ballata da capogiro, una danza che si agita all’eccesso e perde rovinosamente l’equilibrio; intanto, in sottofondo, il ritmo è battuto dal cupo ticchettio di una fine che si avvicina sempre più.

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…Protagonist Król (Bartlomiel Topa) is perhaps one of the least corrupt regarding abuse of his police power, but is still the sort of man prone to violent rage and death threats towards a colleague conducting an affair with his wife, despite the fact that he himself is cheating on her with fellow officer Madecka (Julia Kijowska). After one particularly eventful group night out, Król awakens in a parked car by a river. A body is later fished out of that river, not far from where Król was parked, that of the colleague that was sleeping with his wife. Understandably the number one suspect, and without an alibi due to little recollection of much of the prior night’s events, Król must go on the run and attempt to uncover a potential conspiracy that has led to him being set up. It’s a particularly difficult task considering there are very few trustworthy sources he can turn to for help…

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…I think that Smarzowski, in his urge to denounce this dark side of his own country, took some scenes to extreme levels, especially those depicting the police officers partying. In the other hand, its sarcastic and sturdy vision on the matter has the goal to open the people’s eyes for a problem with great impact in society. The structure is not always clear in its orientation, and sometimes we need to make an extra-effort to understand all the connections. The hasty and abrupt editing is another factor that may not be for everyone’s taste. Even somewhat faulty in its very own poignant and gloomy way, “Traffic Department” uses a strong determination to make us aware of a brutal reality.

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Dom zly (The Dark House) - Wojciech Smarzowski

è il secondo film che vedo di Wojciech Smarzowski, che si conferma un bravissimo regista.
anche qui il tragico e l'abisso sono lì in attesa, e ci si cade come se fosse naturale.
la sceneggiatura è senza pietà, si alternano gli eventi del 1978 e quelli del 1982, qualcuno deve pagare, di qualcuno ci si vendica, c'è qualche esecuzione, una Polonia terribile, quella di quegli anni.
lo sconosciuto che chiede aiuto e non finisce bene è un topos che si ripete anche in "Calvaire"e in "Wolf Creek" (mi vengono in mente questi due film), e "Dom zly" non è da meno.
un gran bel film, non per tutti - Ismaele 

Narrato con continui salti temporali fra passato e presente, “The Dark House” appartiene a quel cinema polacco contemporaneo che ultimamente sta producendo cose parecchio interessanti (“Katyn”, per esempio). Ambientato in uno dei periodi più bui della storia recente del Paese, vede un agronomo la cui vita sta andando piano piano allo sfacelo trovarsi per caso a dover passare una notte in una modesta casa di campagna, senza sospettare quel che sembra un innocuo incontro terminerà in tragedia. Molto interessante la storia e il modo in cui è stata raccontata; eccezionale la fotografia. Molto bello.

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…Set in a remote village in the Bieszczady mountains, the two story strands are united in the person of Edward Srodon (Arkadiusz Jakubik), an ill-fated government farm technician who stumbles into the isolated home of grizzled farmer Zdzislaw Dziabas (Marian Dziedziel) and his much younger wife, Bozena (Kinga Preis), on a stormy autumn night in 1978. Although the atmospheric visuals provide clues that all may not be what it seems, ample booze helps dispel anxieties, as Edward and Zdzislaw make plans to cooperate on an illegal venture selling moonshine.

In the parallel strand, Edward returns to the Dziabias’ homestead in the dead of winter, along with the local militia and the state prosecutor, who consider Edward the prime suspect in the heinous murders committed four years earlier. As lead investigator Lt. Mroz (Bartlomiej Topa) tries to reconstruct the events, it soon becomes clear that uncovering the truth is immaterial to his superiors, as they are trying to hide a number of other crimes.

Reportedly 12 years in the works, the densely detailed screenplay, co-written by Smarzowski and Lukasz Kosmicki, contains echoes of Greek tragedy, folk legend and classic crime films (especially “The Postman Always Rings Twice”). While the senseless violence and snowy locations (plus one pregnant cop) may invite superficial comparisons to “Fargo,” the nihilistic mood and unreliable narrators make “The Dark House” feel more akin to the work of Jim Thompson.

Smarzowski draws intense, nuanced, naturalistic performances from his large ensemble cast, many of them veterans of “The Wedding.” As in that film, he demonstrates an astute understanding of pacing and a dab hand at portraying human grotesqueries.

With the 1978 scenes shot at night, in the fall, during a hellacious downpour, and the 1982 scenes shot in the cruel daylight of icy winter, the intercut sequences are easy to tell apart, and provide an elemental opposition that works for the plot…

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This is an astounding film, bleak, grim, more than gritty and for those of us who were not brought up in an Eastern Bloc country a remarkable insight into the machinations of small town corruption Polish style.
Films like this should be seen by a wider audience, it was a captivating experience to sit and view the inner workings of this elaborate (sometimes overly) story.
There was just too much 'going on' in the story and some of it could have been left on the cutting room floor to give a tighter film, but that is a small critique of what is a disturbing look back at communism at 'street level'
If you like your cinema real...don't miss the opportunity to see this slice of Polish communistic vodka sodden culture.

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The Dark House has been called a "Polskie Fargo" but this film is darker and more twisted than anything the Coen Brothers have dreamed up. Set in Communist Poland during the Fall of 1978, this is a drama with pitch black humor. An accidental traveler stops and stays overnight at a farm house in a remote rural area. Soon he and his hosts, a farmer and his wife, become good friends. The evening ends in tragedy. Simultaneously, the story of a police investigation into these tragic events is unfolding, as officers attempt to solve the mystery of what happened on that night. For some of the investigators, uncovering the truth is not as important as hiding their own secrets.

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Wesele (The Wedding) - Wojciech Smarzowski

un film che ti incatena fino all'ultimo minuto, un matrimonio e una festa con qualche difficoltà, che ingigantendosi diventano valanga.
un meccanismo a orologeria verso lo sfascio totale, senza nessuna pietà.
un gioiellino da non perdere - Ismaele

Una vittoria schiacciante quella diWojciech Smarzowski e del suo film Wesele ("The Wedding") alla cerimonia di premiazione degli Orly, i premi al cinema polacco che sono stati assegnati ieri sera a Varsavia.
Con sei statuette, tra le quali quelle per il miglior film, regia, sceneggiatura e attore (Marian Dziedziel), il regista, classe 1963, si impone come uno dei più promettenti della sua generazione. Prodotto da Grupa Filmowa e coprodotto da Telewizja Polska, Filmi It e Agencja Produkcji Filmowej, Wesele racconta la storia di una disastrosa giornata di nozze. Il padre della sposa tenta di impressionare gli invitati in ogni modo, ma la sua organizzazione fa acqua da tutte le parti.

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…The Wedding is a delightful satire on Polish marriage traditions but much of what it features is so universal that people all over the world will be able to identify with it. The temporary loosening of the rules which applies on such a special day makes it easy for the wedding attendees to find themselves sucked into scandalous and criminal behaviour, and what seem like minor infractions have big consequences.

Everybody there has secrets and as these come to light their carefully structured lives collapse like a row of dominoes. What makes this so fascinating is that the film never seems contrived in the way most farces do. Each of the characters is richly developed and their actions all make sense within their own personal narratives. The ensemble acting is perfectly judged and the script brings disparate stories together to create a tale much bigger than the two hours it fills.

Don't be fooled by the title - The Wedding is not by any means a conventional romance. But if you enjoy observational comedy and character driven stories, this could be for you.

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…Smarzowski's expert control of the picture's tone means that potentially melodramatic, episodic or sitcom-like happenings feel integrated within the organic whole. This is pitch-black satire, with everything crucially cranked a notch into mildly caricatured extremity: a comedy of riotous, debauched, gleeful excess, carefully observing classical dramatic unities of geography and chronology. But The Wedding isn't just a catalogue of calamity and cynicism: Smarzowski smoothly builds up to an unexpectedly romantic and optimistic finale – one so very hard-won that it feels anything but sentimental. Sensitive souls, however, should perhaps steer clear – like that socially-lubricating, tongue-loosening firewater which is gulped down in liver-mushing quantities throughout,The Wedding leaves us intoxicated, a little demented, and giddily eager for more.

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