Chris Knipp
11-02-2013, 10:10 PM
See my review on Filmleaf (added 10 Nov. 2013) here. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3622-AFTERMATH-Pok%C5%82osie-%28Wladyslaw-Pasikowski-2012%29)
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8637/p6xn.jpg
Wladyslaw Pasikowski: AFTERMATH/Pokłosie (2012)
An extremely controversial film about Polish wartime antisemitism
An article in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/01/polands-past)says this "may the most controversial Polish film ever." It focuses on the uncovering of a massacre of Jews by the local farming community who rounded them up in a barn and burned it down during the war, with no Germans present. The present-day villagers violently object to two brothers who uncover this information from 1941. I've just seen this film and will write about it further. Reaction to the film in Poland has been extreme. Read the article. Here are excerpts from the Economist article:
A new Polish film, Pokłosie (Consequences), released a few weeks ago, is different [from SCHINDLER'S LIST and THE PIANIST]. There is no hero, however unlikely, battling the forces of Nazi evil. And the plot is only vaguely based on the historical facts of a pogrom that took place in Jedwabne in north eastern Poland in July 1941, when several hundred Jews were burnt in a barn by their Polish neighbours.
The film describes the attempt made by two brothers, Jozek (Maciej Stuhr) and Franciszek [Ireneusz Czop], to break the conspiracy of silence among the residents of the village where the massacre against their Jewish neighbours had taken place. As they progress with their research about the past, the majority of villagers turn against them.
The film’s premiere last month led to a huge wave of internet activity with strong doses of anti-Semitism, mostly pointing to the presence of Jews in the state security apparatus of Communist Poland (the suggestion being that there were good reasons to be anti-Semitic). Many labeled the film “anti-Polish” and therefore refused to see it. The head of the conservative Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński, seemed to agree when he said: “I have not seen Pokłosie and do not intend to see it.”
Even so, some newspapers and magazines published serious discussions of the film, praising the director for having the courage to approach such subject matter and the actor for playing the role. Andrzej Wajda, a famous Polish film director, endorsed it. A company monitoring the web (www.sentione.pl) found that when anonymous commentators post their opinions about Mr Stuhr they are overwhelmingly (78%) negative, while on Facebook and Twitter (where authors identify themselves) the same subject attracts 72% of positive chatter. In other words, anti-Semitism still exists, but by and large anti-Semites are not showing their ugly faces in public.
Screened at Cinema Village, New York, 2 Nov. 2013. I will give my own reactions to the film shortly; but whatever I think, it is obviously incendiary material whose local reception may be more than the outside world's.
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8637/p6xn.jpg
Wladyslaw Pasikowski: AFTERMATH/Pokłosie (2012)
An extremely controversial film about Polish wartime antisemitism
An article in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/01/polands-past)says this "may the most controversial Polish film ever." It focuses on the uncovering of a massacre of Jews by the local farming community who rounded them up in a barn and burned it down during the war, with no Germans present. The present-day villagers violently object to two brothers who uncover this information from 1941. I've just seen this film and will write about it further. Reaction to the film in Poland has been extreme. Read the article. Here are excerpts from the Economist article:
A new Polish film, Pokłosie (Consequences), released a few weeks ago, is different [from SCHINDLER'S LIST and THE PIANIST]. There is no hero, however unlikely, battling the forces of Nazi evil. And the plot is only vaguely based on the historical facts of a pogrom that took place in Jedwabne in north eastern Poland in July 1941, when several hundred Jews were burnt in a barn by their Polish neighbours.
The film describes the attempt made by two brothers, Jozek (Maciej Stuhr) and Franciszek [Ireneusz Czop], to break the conspiracy of silence among the residents of the village where the massacre against their Jewish neighbours had taken place. As they progress with their research about the past, the majority of villagers turn against them.
The film’s premiere last month led to a huge wave of internet activity with strong doses of anti-Semitism, mostly pointing to the presence of Jews in the state security apparatus of Communist Poland (the suggestion being that there were good reasons to be anti-Semitic). Many labeled the film “anti-Polish” and therefore refused to see it. The head of the conservative Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński, seemed to agree when he said: “I have not seen Pokłosie and do not intend to see it.”
Even so, some newspapers and magazines published serious discussions of the film, praising the director for having the courage to approach such subject matter and the actor for playing the role. Andrzej Wajda, a famous Polish film director, endorsed it. A company monitoring the web (www.sentione.pl) found that when anonymous commentators post their opinions about Mr Stuhr they are overwhelmingly (78%) negative, while on Facebook and Twitter (where authors identify themselves) the same subject attracts 72% of positive chatter. In other words, anti-Semitism still exists, but by and large anti-Semites are not showing their ugly faces in public.
Screened at Cinema Village, New York, 2 Nov. 2013. I will give my own reactions to the film shortly; but whatever I think, it is obviously incendiary material whose local reception may be more than the outside world's.