Powidoki

It's very difficult to say Farewell. It's very difficult to make a Farewell movie. I do not know if Andrzej Wajda knew that 'Afterimage' was to be his last movie. He undertook and involved himself in this film with the same passion, rigor and attention to the detail, with the same mastering of the art and science of film-making as ever. He also did not abandon the major theme of his cinema - the history of Poland seen as a subset of the history of Europe and of all mankind, and as a collection of the stories of the men who made it.

There is one major difference though. Many of his previous films focused on political characters, they were about men who changed history, about victors at least at the historical scale - Danton, Walesa - even if they sometime paid with their lives. The hero of this film, the avant-garde Polish artist Wladyslaw Strzeminski was defeated by history, and the film is the story of his defeat, of his physical but also moral decay. It's a story quite typical about the manner Communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe treated their artists, and even if I did not know anything about him before this movie, his story was well known to me as the same fate (or worse in some cases) was imposed on artists who did not compromise in Romania where I was born and I lived half of my life. We see him at the beginning admired and valued as a teacher and artist, he also was a companion of modernist artists who were associated with the Russian revolution, but this did not help him either. He was not an anti-Communist, but he valued true art, could not accept enrollment of art as a tool for propaganda and the norms of the dogmatic 'realism', and his refusal to compromise cost him his teaching position, his membership in the artist's union, the very possibility of painting. The humiliating tentative to find a way to survive had no chance, the regime was still in the Stalinist period and crushed all opponents according to the principle 'the one who is not with us is against us'. Even the help and support of a handful of students who stood by their beloved teacher and mentor could not save him.

The lead role is played with a lot of restraint and dignity by Boguslaw Linda, his flame is interior, he shows the artist far from being a flawless person, actually sharing some of the guilt of not being able to maintain his family and especially help his teen daughter (exceptional acting of 14 years old Bronislawa Zamachowska). There are many very well constructed scenes, some of them full with details bringing back to life with controlled anger that dark period of transformation, when Poland and Eastern Europe were postponing hope for a few decades and were transitioning from one nightmare to another. Wajda's last film is not a testament, it's an integral part of his opus of work.

A person sees only what they are aware of. This is the afterimage. For Wladyslaw Strzeminski, a real-life artist and professor in post- World War II Poland, the knife of awareness cuts both ways. A model communist citizen before it was fashionable to be so, Strzeminski finds himself at odds with indifferent, hollow politicians and struggles to maintain his integrity, after the war. Despite the artist's modest lifestyle, efficiency apartment, the loss of his legs in the war and desire just to paint, teach and take pleasure in such simple things as rolling in a meadow, he is slowly crushed by these unfeeling bureaucrats. He is even banned from buying art supplies. Beloved by his students, Strzeminski encourages their individual forms of expression and urges them to keep the boundary between art and politics.

The film scenes are precise and the transitions between them are remarkably fluid, scary good! The acting is exemplary. The actors are cast perfectly, especially the main actor and the young woman who portrays his long-suffering daughter. Such wonders are the marks of a masterful director. Wajda died just after the completion of the film. Wajda was the trusting sort, said a friend of his, just before the film began. Such trust in his crew paid dividends. Seen at the Miami International Film Festival.

What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.

Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.

What does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? Why did ancient Egyptians worship the capacity to pay careful attention as the highest of gods? What dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant, and vengeful? Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure, and responsibility, distilling the world's wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its listeners.

'After Image' shows the struggle of one man against a system. The man is Wladyslaw Strzeminski, a Polish avant garde painter, and the system is postwar communism. Slowly, we see the man being destroyed by the system. Witnesses stand by, but are unable to do anything. That's how powerful totalitarianism is: any opposition, even from a harmless painter, is crushed.

In the very first scene, we see Strzeminski in a beautiful green meadow, teaching his pupils how to paint a landscape. When a new pupil presents herself, he literally rolls down the hillside to meet her - in spite of his disabilities: he misses one leg and one arm. Strzeminski is happy and upbeat. During the film, this proud man slowly transforms into a human wreck. At the end, he is no longer able to stand on his feet, let alone roll down a hillside.

Bit by bit, the communists make his life impossible. In a visually stunning scene, all light in his apartment turns red, because of a giant Stalin banner which is attached over his window. Furious, because he is no longer able to paint in natural daylight, he tears the banner with one of his crutches. It's the start of a fight against the system that turns out to be futile.

Director Andrzej Wajda, who died last year, shows Strzeminski as a man who lives for his art, and for nothing else. Even his teenage daughter is forced to move to an orphanage, because he doesn't seems to be interested in raising her. Wajda shows Strzeminski's weaknesses, but also his opponent's doubts. Many of them somehow sympathize with him, but are unable to show support without risking their own position. An example is the manager of the local museum, who cannot display his paintings, but carefully keeps them in storage.

Parallel with Strzeminski's decline, we witness also Poland's transformation from a proud nation into a Soviet-dominated satellite state, where communist propaganda is everywhere and the quality of life deteriorates rapidly. In one scene, Strzeminski is turned down by a shop selling painting materials, because his membership of the artist's union is withdrawn. He hides his disappointment and takes his daughter to the cinema. But there he finds out he has to watch Soviet propaganda. Disgusted, he leaves the theatre.

'After Image' shows an important episode of Poland's artistic history. At the same time, it is a warning against any totalitarianism, and an ode to artistic freedom.

For what proved his cinematic swansong, the 90 year-old Andrzej Wajda came full circle, returning to the generation who provided the subject (and title) for the film that first made his name over 60 years ago. Wajda would have been the same age as the adoring students gathered around the avant-garde artist Władysław Strzemiński (1893-1952) at the art school at Łódź he had co-founded in 1945; but as a one-man awkward squad he was soon drawing the fire of the postwar communist authorities.

The sustained official campaign of death by a thousand cuts inflicted on Strzemiński strongly recalls that depicted in Wajda's earlier 'Rough Treatment' (1978), to which 'Afterimage' often feels like a prequel. The earlier film, however, was an angry, brutally contemporary film, while 'Afterimage' - while vividly conveying the Orwellian nightmare that was Stalinist Poland - is a much mellower piece recalling the far-off days of Wajda's youth with a grace and energy wholly belying his astonishing age; and Andrzej Mularczyk's script gleams throughout with flashes of wry black humour. The film has few out and out villains, with most of Strzemiński's persecutors sympathetic but powerless to resist.

The jagged widescreen photography of Pawel Edelman and design by Marek Warszewski simultaneously evoke the monochromatic drabness of life under communism while often looking vaguely expressionistic, with odd flashes of colour skilfully deployed. (A particular visual highlight is the priceless scene early on in which his studio is saturated with red light from a banner of Stalin erected directly outside his window, to which his already characteristic response is guaranteed to get him into trouble.)

Bogusław Linda's performance as Strzemiński would be impressive enough even without the remarkable technical feat he accomplishes of nipping about on crutches minus his left arm and left leg, while Bronislawa Zamachowska is tremendous as his equally resilient and bloody-minded daughter Nika; truly a chip off the old block.