Róza

Looks so real... I almost forget it's MOVIE. it's different kind of movies hard sad real dark .

'Rόża', a big-budget Polish production, is set just after the Second World War, as the German community in Poland face reprisals from the Communists. The couple sitting next to me in the cinema were whispering to each other throughout, which was tiresome - almost as tiresome as the film's multiple rape scenes. Many German women did indeed suffer sexual violence at the hands of the Red Army, but I really don't think it was necessary to show it quite so often - even if most of the scenes were extremely quick and none of them were titillating. It spoiled what was otherwise a good human-interest drama. To show one such scene, to establish what the characters were suffering, would have been acceptable - to show multiple such scenes veered, albeit unintentionally, too far into voyeurism, IMHO.

Rose falls in line with the long tradition of somber Polish martyr tales from the Second World War. Though more modern takes on the war have some new wrinkles, such as the once uncomfortable admission of Polish collaborators with the Soviets and Nazis, the basic stories of the protagonists and how they fit into Poland's narrative remains the same. The focus of the story is often still a person, an altruist and martyr, struggling to survive in a world where altruism has no answers.

Rose is the tale of a widowed woman, her daughter, and a former AK officer hiding his identity, trying to survive the chaotic post-war environment of rural Poland. Their surroundings are constantly hostile, Russian soldiers, a burgeoning Communist Party and opportunists all do their best to take advantage of the chaos. Violence, rape, looting the corpses left behind by the war, or the ever present minefields, there is nothing romantic, or joyous. The only option is survival, and the protagonist's hope for a piece of their prewar dignity.

The film, in it's affectation, does well to reflect this. It's color is purposely muted, as if still covered in a layer of ash. The sun is never allowed to shine through the clouds, and the coming of a hard winter looms over everything. All this however, makes watch the film itself difficult. The story hardly lets up, and it's darkness and violence wears on you. It makes for an experience that is difficult to watch, and you can become desensitized to it's violence. It becomes easier and easier to disengage.

You can't deny the film's attempt of a honest portrayal of that tragic era of Polish history. However, the film almost chases these tragedies with reckless abandon. The film opens with the protagonist begin forced to watch the rape of wife by German soldiers, in the wreckage of their destroyed and burning home. A valid metaphor, but not a particularly sophisticated one. Though, as an experience the problems of its dramatic construction keep the film from being brilliant, it is well filmed and acted. Worth seeing, in the interest of history, but difficult to watch and definitely not for everyone.

"War is like a fire," it is said in The Art of War "if you do not put it out, it will burn itself out." The fire of World War II smoldered in Masuria, in the northeast corner of Poland, long after the war ceased. Life was especially hard for innocents like Rose, a German speaker whose soldier husband died in battle. Victorious Russians and Poles treated such women as conquered enemies. Alone on a potato farm, Rose is on the edge of death when Tadeusz encounters her. Tadeusz, who deserted from the Polish Home Army when his wife was brutally murdered, is in no mood to see another woman suffer like this. He stays to protect Rose as best he can, but also to tend to his own broken heart. Rose and Tadeusz swim in a pristine lake in the forest, relive happy moments from the past, plant potatoes and attempt to mold a bright future from the ashes, yet the flames of war, violence and abuse are not so easily snuffed out.

Rose is a determined character who refuses to give up despite extreme hardship and abuse. She radiates hope amid despair. So does Tadeusz. Together they embody goodness and sparks of renewal in the world even at its bleakest moments. The film tugs at your emotions. Dark and light moods are heightened as film images shift between black and white and color. It is very disturbing yet illuminating to better understand the plight of Masurians, caught between warring powers. Some of my ancestors, German speakers and Russian citizens in what is now Poland, came from the area. The acting is splendid. World premiere seen at the Toronto international film festival.

Recommended to me by a Polish penpal to shed light on.the grim and fragmentary situation in Poland after WWII, particularly with regards to the Masurian minority group. It's a rather harsh film depicting the struggle.of a former soldier to find peace and solitude with a widow despite both of their profound traumas. It's a hard subject to wedge any sort of brevity into and the film amiably tries to balance the bleakness with some hope - the narrative lurches are a bit much and poor Rose feels a bit of a secondary character despite the name - but the human fallout of the Potsdam Agreement and the realities of life for the Polish people after the war is little known in the UK so I'm ultimately very glad I saw it.