Interrogation.

Review #1958: Interrogation.

Cast: 

Krystyna Janda (Antonina 'Tonia' Dziwisz), Adam Ferency (Lieutenant Tadeusz Morawski), Janusz Gajos (Major Zawada "Kapielowy"), Agnieszka Holland (Communist Witkowska), Anna Romantowska (Miroslawa "Mira" Szejnert), Bożena Dykiel (Honorata), and Olgierd Łukaszewicz (Konstanty Dziwisz) Directed by Ryszard Bugajski.

Review: 

"Studying philosophy provided me with many useful skills: it taught me logical thinking and rigorous discipline. When I write a script or when I work on set I still have the habits of a disciplined philosophy student."

Every so often, I have to remember that films aren't always made in a vacuum in terms of being made and released as quickly as possible. There are films that have odd release years just as much as the moon revolves around the Earth. Various countries had "New Waves", Poland had a "Cinema of moral anxiety", which basically portrayed the crisis that came with Communist Poland. So yes, it was time to do a film that could not easily find release in the Polish People's Republic until right before the end of its era as a satellite state of the Soviet Union in 1989. Anyway, let's start at the beginning. In 1972, Poland asked Andrzej Wajda, a noted director at the time (The Promised Land (1975) and The Maids of Wilko (1979), for example), to serve as artistic director for a film studio in the country (as was the idea for esteemed directors of the time in the country). Beginning on December 13, 1981, the government of the Polish People's Republic installed martial law, which lasted for over 19 months, which saw the arrest of thousands of activists dedicated to fighting the oppressive Communist state.  Zespół Filmowy X would end up making a handful of films for a decade until its closure in 1983, when the country shut down the studio due to their political positions that manifested in their films. One of those films was Przesłuchanie (Interrogation), which was a film about false imprisonment under the Stalinist era (which lasted until 1956, three years after Stalin died) of the Republic. Filmed in 1981 for release in 1982, the original version had included scenes set in contemporary times and dealt with a general statement about the past regime that seemed to the Ministry Arts and Culture to tie into the current regime. Almost lost in the discussion is the director responsible for the film in Ryszard Bugajski, who co-wrote it with Janusz Dymek. He was born in Warsaw in 1943, a year before an uprising began in the city that saw countless people die. His family was slated to die by firing squad, but a bomb fell before the wall where they were lined up that saw the firing squad die instead. They lived in Choszczowka as a hiding place until the end of the war. He had numerous interests leading up to him graduating high school, such as his first interest in being a musician, but he also dabbled in drawing, painting, and writer. He even attended Warsaw University with the intent of studying philosophy. However, when he accidentally went to the movie theater (in his words) and saw 8½, he realized that he wanted to become a filmmaker. Three years of philosophy was now right down the tube as he tried to apply for film school; he first attended Lodz Film School in 1969. A couple of television shorts followed before he directed his first feature with Kobieta i kobieta (1979), but more important to the discussion is how he kept Interrogation alive. When the film was rejected, he made a 35mm copy and hid it from the authorities while later making video copies to distribute underground, which would see private screenings in basements for years. He moved from Poland to Canada in 1985 and worked in film and television before returning to the country in 1995, six years after the film was granted release when the country experienced revolution in 1989 in ways similar to the other satellite states of the Soviet Union. A director of a number of films and television, he died at the age of 76 in 2019.

Janda cited the lives of two women in Tonia Lechmann and Wanda Podgórska as the inspiration for the story in the film, with the latter having spent six years in prison and serving as consultant to Janda on the film. She told her what would make sense in the do's and don'ts in terms of impudence and playfulness that could still be tolerated. The result is a film that will work best for those who know exactly what they are looking for in terms of harrowing experience, one that maintains 118 minutes of useful perspective on the horrors of brutality and the people who have to react to it in their own ways. It is no surprise that it was called "the most anti-Communist film in the history of Polish People's Republic", because this is a triumph of resolve and dedication by all involved to make a film that doesn't shy away from the horrors of the past in order to make a film that strikes at the horrors of the present (and all that could be yet to come). It is a reminder that anyone can be a target for torture or interrogation, and that the best way forward is courage and open resistance rather than betrayal or static refusal. In other words, it isn't just a movie where people with torture such as flooding the cell with water or seeing rats everywhere or trying to play people against each other in betrayal. There are plenty of harrowing scenes, such as its opening sequences that go from innocent exchanges of marital disputes to drunken kidnapping or one involving people accepting death only to find deception instead. Janda pulls off a tremendous performance, a spirit that is mulched into the ground by an unyielding system of terrors that only have the guts of trickery and force at their hand but not the strength to stop unyielding resistance. Her fragility is put out there in raw detail from blank sheet to awareness in a wholly absorbing manner that is one of the most captivating experiences of acting seen in a film. Gajos and Ferency are the two visible men behind the shameful force of brutality, each with their own sense of conviction about what they actually believe. Holland is actually known for her work as a director and writer on a handful of features, both in and outside Poland, which she first left in late 1981 before the country imposed martial law. She and the other prisoners of fate do pretty well, interacting with Janda with weary timing that endures in the foreground. It is a movie that runs so consistently on edge, one without a shred of false tricks in its depiction of tyranny and despair for the decisions made by humanity against other humans in the clearest sense possible. The movie runs the course of misery and the highs and lows of human spirit with its own perspective of where it can all lead to in its swift ending that make it a fascinating piece of world cinema, one that could not be denied in its status as a Polish classic made by the Polish.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: A co-production between New Zealand, South Africa, and America...