Fantasia 2013 - Thursday, July 25th

Here are some brief impressions on the one film I saw on Thursday, July 25th:

Szamanka (The Shaman)
Purposefully crude in its construction, with abrupt cuts constantly attacking our senses, this late effort by director Zulawski is a redundant and indulgent exercise in repetition, fore-fronting many of the director’s leitmotivs from a slightly novel, but politically relevant perspective. There are no genre undertones here, no familiar dramatic crutches on which to rely, but merely a returning fascination for passionate love and the notion of duplicity, the depiction of which amply showcases the director’s knack for intricate long takes and hysterical over-acting. The result is something that feels entirely familiar, a universal tragedy that borders on pure madness, but with enough political undertones and deep symbolic power to grant it renewed relevance. Released in the mid-1990s, as Poland was emerging from nearly 50 years of Communist rule, Szamanka is one of Zulawski’s few “Polish films”. As such, it becomes simultaneously lesser and greater than a simple genre film, trading a certain universal appeal for a chance at specific, but credible social commentary. Articulated around the idea of still life, the film thus becomes a passionate and deep-seeded answer to the opportunistic rise of Catholicism and capitalism in post-Communist Poland, with its titular figure reminding us that the human soul is unchanging in its abandon to unfocused passions and its subsequent slavery to the power of influences.

The narrative focuses on the torrid love affair between a young anthropologist (Boguslaw Linda, from Man of Iron and Blind Chance) and a mysterious engineering student (the enigmatic and beautiful Iwona Petry), who celebrate life and humanity in a nearly constant sexual embrace. But while it borders on the pornographic, the film does bear far deeper implications as to the nature of human life itself, showing a reality that is both finite, but cyclical, a reminder of both the idea of still life and the literal stillness of humanity in the face of social transformation. Hence, the narrative also finds depth through time, for as the young man probes the increasingly uncontrollable young woman, so too does he probe history itself by studying the decaying corpse of the titular thaumaturge. By extending his influence through time, the figure of the shaman is thus "brought back to life", putting the past on a collision course with the future, with humanity remaining a still catalyst of unchecked passions, ready to be molded and transformed through the suggestion of "exalted" leaders. And in the end, the cycle is completed with the return of ritual sacrifice, at once a reminder of our primordial barbarity and the power of our passion, at once a reminder of death and of rebirth. Now, this is perhaps a tad intangible as a synopsis, but so too does the film often prove intangible, proceeding from a certain expressionistic manner that seems to break down space and time with equal ease.

Warsaw is a living still life.

While it is hard for me to collect any truly matured thoughts on this film, which I enjoyed only mildly at first, I seem to constantly uncover some deeper significance as I scrutinize not only the symbolic aspect of the narrative, but also its broken story structure. In all honesty, my appreciation of the piece was marred by the circumstances under which I experienced it. The screening I attended was actually delayed 45 minutes as director Zulawski (who received a Lifetime Achievement Award on the night) wished to do the Q&A prior to the film. With uneasy silence being broken by the mildly relevant questions of film historians and drooling fans alike, it was all a very tedious affair indeed. Then, the curtains opened and the madness began. I had to struggle to keep my eyes open during this brazen and unfocused display of carnality, often wondering about the fate of leading lady Iwona Petry (rumored to have been tortured extensively by the director) and the relevance of the entire enterprise in the perspective of Polish liberation. Being little more than the umpteenth exposé of Zulawski’s many quirks, the narrative plays out almost like that of a porno film, dishing out sex scenes at a brisk pace, showing once more how primordial and immediate human emotions are. But then, there is deeper meaning to be found in the broken story structure and the distressing sense of space created from the accumulation of jump cuts. This first pertains to a purely Zulawskian depiction of passion, but as it spreads across the board, it creates a literal contraction of time, making the past and the present nearly undistinguishable, not unlike the past and the present of Poland itself, caught inbetween the interests of dogmatic leaders feeding off the very unchecked power of human emotion. By using a dizzying abundance of abrupt cuts, the film constantly blurs the distinction between locales, creating a nearly oneiric sense of space that puts humanity itself as the only common signifier. This also helps create an expressionistic portrayal of passion as an unfocused human trait that comes to infect the whole of reality. This complex relationship between the director’s trademark quirks and the political needs of the film might not result in a harmonious whole, but it creates an ebullient manna of symbolic power. 

And then, there is the idea of still life, which infects the narrative in a very crude, very aggressive way, first with the location of the action in the historical city of Warsaw. Home to the biggest Jewish ghetto during WWII and a vast number of similar war scars left opened by all the plaques and reminders scattered around, Warsaw is living testimony to the finite nature of human life. Warsaw is a living still life, dead but stubbornly alive, not unlike the rotting shaman of the title. The fascination with his corpse, at once an earthly remain and an everlasting object of influence, then ties this idea of still life with that of “rebirth” as part of a never-ending cycle. Hence, the reminders of life and death, which clutter the film in alternation. Sex is the most tangible signifier of life here, as it unites living bodies and passionate minds in one indivisible embrace. But sex constantly mingles with death, putting the everlasting nature of passion at odds with the reality of time and its lethal power. Bent over a piece of draped furniture in a dead still apartment full of antiques, poor Iwona seems to merge with the white shroud underneath her wriggling body, at once an active object of passion and a corpse to be. Actually, the look of her apartment seems to constantly remind us of the still life. First, with the shrouded antiques, earthly riches to be left behind in death, then with the scientific photographs of humans, who mock us with their simplistic depiction of our selves, then with the climactic act of cannibalism, which stands as a culmination not only of the narrative, but of Zulawski's entire work. At once a depiction of life, death and rebirth, this brutal and beautiful event also proves to be the ultimate depiction of passionate love. And as such, it provides a golden key to understanding all the intricacies of the director's philosophy. This might not make Szamanka a great film, but it sure makes it a relevant one, especially when it comes to understanding the Zulawskian mindset as a whole.

***   Purposefully disorienting, this intricate and deeply symbolic film finds relevance both in its political outlook on post-communist Poland and its exaltation of the director's take on passionate love.