Directed by Lech Majewski
90 minutes
In Polish with English subtitles

The illuminated poet Rafal Wojaczek was a shooting star in the post World War II literary scene in Poland. He was a wildcat, both in his poetry and his life. He fought against all restrictions, including any sense of normality. He was barging doors open, searching for his own idea of reality. Confronted by the world around him, he only knew how to rebel. This dismissal of reality would go to absurd lengths, including a habit of spontaneously jumping out of windows. He tried to integrate art and life, and everything he touched became an instrument to experiment with.

This is a strange little flick, with an almost documentary edge… shot in a gorgeously rough old-school black-and-white, it has a brilliant texture, almost as if it was painted with coal dust. The stark cinematography gives the film vibrancy and urgency—it grabs viewers by the collar and takes them on a wild journey through the last years of the poet's short life. 

Silesian poet Wojaczek is portrayed by Krzysztof Siwczyk who gives an amazing performance—totally unforgettable, and he wasn't even a trained actor. Perhaps the reason a non-actor like Siwczyk was able to give the role such flair was because he was a poet himself, and had both the poetic skills and rebelliousness of the character he was portraying. He enters the movie like a bull in a china shop, but in a positive way.

One of the surprising things about the film for me was that it was made in 1999, because it looks at least 30 years older, capturing a spirit that Polish cinema had in the late 1960s—when they made sharp black-and-white movies that were gritty, punchy, risky and hard-hitting… not the smooth, placid, polished, consumer-friendly, middle-class aesthetics of so many flicks made today. As we head faster towards digital purgatory this film takes a few steps towards a difficult, but more rapturous reality.

Another outrageously rare screening of a film that has been criminally forgotten.