Blog post on Little Rose

            Set in Warsaw on the backdrop of the Polish government’s anti-Zionist campaign in 1967-1968, Jan Kidawa-Błoński’s film Little Rose dives into that world, humanizing the actions of the Polish secret police, dissidents, and those caught in between and bringing the tangled relationships between these three groups into focus.  The film tracks the evolving relationships of three central characters: the secret policeman Roman Różek, the dissident Adam Warczewski, and the coopted informant Kamila Sakowicz, who signs her reports as the title’s Little Rose.

            Little Rose depicts these characters’ living spaces as reflective of their personalities and plot lines.  Kamila’s apartment possesses the potential to be something more, but it remains raw and bare.  Her place tells the story of a woman, an orphan, who is still trying to carve out a place for herself in the world and is clearly concerned with upward social mobility.  Kamila’s apartment has a feminine quality to it, as seen by the lace she finds to cover her table and the various knick knacks shown in the background.  It is the site of her early sex scenes with Roman, before their relationship decays into one filled with secrecy and hurt.  The viewer is also privy to Kamila’s private moments when she enjoys luxuries brought back from Adam’s apartment: the wine and various books. 

            Roman’s apartment is always in shadow, with sunlight filtered through the windows.  It seems to serve more as a shrine to boxing and aggression than anything else; the audience can only view Roman’s office space and trophy cases.  The actions that take place in his apartment are generally unpleasant, especially towards the end of the film when Roman tries to rape Kamila on the desktop.  In this space we witness attempted rape, fights, and sexual encounters that become more impersonal over the course of the film.  Roman’s apartment lacks any boundary between work (writing and reading informant reports) and sexual pleasure and pain.

            In contrast, Adam’s living space is portrayed as homey, serene, and safe.  Flowers decorate the apartment and we see shots of his bedroom in addition to his office.  His place is filled with fine old furniture, and the warm colors of the décor are comforting.  Upon first entering his apartment, Kamila is impressed with the walls full of books and the wine that Adam serves; his is the home of a cultured man.  It harbors a close family, as exemplified by the scene of the Warczewskis gathered around a crackling fire on Christmas Eve.  Adam and Kamila have intellectual discussions as well as sexual relations here, indicating the strength of their bond over the mostly physical relationship between Kamila and Roman.

           Just as his home is privileged over Roman’s, so Adam himself is presented as a smart, coherent, educated contrast to the brash, uncultivated Roman.  Yet it is important to distinguish Adam from the other dissident writers portrayed in Little Rose.   For the most part, these writers are depicted as petty and not particularly virtuous.  Though they intellectually oppose the regime, their primary concerns are still their careers and personal desires.  Adam emerges as the hero among them, delivering the inspiring speech at the Writers’ Union that ultimately causes a change of heart in Kamila.  In addition, Adam is the first person we see treat Kamila with respect: He admires her studies, seeks to improve her writing, takes a personal interest in her hobbies, and loves her tenderly.

            While Adam does exemplify truth and virtue in Little Rose, he is at best a flawed dissident hero.  Adam is completely fooled by Kamila’s seductive acts at the beginning of the film and totally ignorant of her reports for Roman.  Even after Adam learns of her deceit, he chooses to ignore the humiliation of being duped and decides to marry Kamila.  Though Adam does believe in truth and virtue, it would seem that love and the personal gratification he gains from being with Kamilia eclipse those ideals.

            Roman and Kamila, both coming from impoverished backgrounds, form a relationship based on desperation and lust.  The orphaned Kamila has no one but Roman in her life, and this loneliness makes her crave his love and attention.  Theirs is a very physical relationship, evident during the first nightclub scene and the sex scene that immediately follows.  As the movie progresses, Kamila grows apart from Roman, recoiling from his aggressive nature, and is drawn instead to Adam.  This transition is fueled in part by Kamila’s growing role as an informant.  Though Roman does care very deeply about her, he is pressured at work to push her closer to Adam. 

            The scenes involving nudity reveal much about the characters’ thoughts and personalities.  In one early scene, Roman argues with a nude Kamila in her apartment, his hostile and offensive behavior juxtaposed with her openness, honesty, and vulnerability. When their relationship is withering, the final sex scene with Roman is particularly impersonal, devoid of conversation and eye contact, and afterwards Kamila lies curled in the fetal position.  Adam, in contrast, is much tenderer with Kamila, holding her hand as they make love.  Kamila’s nudity finally signals her resignation after Roman exposes her as an informant to Adam.  When Roman comes to her door, she simply drops her clothing and bares herself, as if she were a sex worker for hire.

            The very sexual nature of Kamila and her relationships, combined with the consequences of her actions, would seem to qualify her as a femme fatale.  She is aware of her attractiveness and exploits it to make Adam fall in love with her initially so that she can extract information.  Kamila, however, differs from the femme fatale in her intention.  She does not want to control or harm Adam; she actually believes that if she proves Adam’s innocence, all will be well.  Kamila accepts the job of informant because she wishes to please Roman and perform a significant job.  In writing up her reports, she seems more ambitious than malicious. Most importantly, Kamila undergoes a transformation that disqualifies her as a femme fatale even as it suggests her heroism.  After Adam has been intimidated and beaten by two secret police thugs, she decides to marry him. 

            Kamila’s story in Little Rose resembles that of the protagonist Sabina in another recent Polish film about the communist era, Reverse (2009).  In Reverse, Sabina struggles with her own secret policeman-suitor, Bronek.  Yet Sabina is the antithesis of Kamila in terms of her cultured background and carefully concealed anti-government ideology.  She lives with her mother and grandmother in a very comfortable apartment secured by her brother, who is a successful socialist realist painter.  Sabina’s relationship with Bronek is barely established when he asks her to inform; he comes into her life from a different place shrouded in mystery and sweeps Sabina off her feet in a whirlwind romance.  Such an impression cannot last forever, though, and the once-smooth Bronek suddenly loses his touch.  Sabina understands that she is being used and despatches her seducer with the help of her entire family.

            The film Little Rose thrives on uncertainty, so it is no surprise that the final scenes bear out this pattern.  The first ambiguity involves Adam’s death.  Was he murdered?  The single rose left at the base of the stairs to Adam’s apartment suggests that Roman was somehow involved.  Yet the cause of death, Adam’s fall from a ledge to the pavement, and the undisturbed nature of the apartment make Roman a somewhat dubious perpetrator.  Was the death a suicide?  Adam at this point had been stripped of almost everything he loved – his writing, job, reputation – and perhaps he only married Kamilia to ensure that his daughter would be cared for.  But this scenario does not account for the rose left by the stairs and does not reflect Adam’s otherwise brave character.

            The final train station scene raises even more questions.  After Roman’s Jewish identity is revealed by his superior, he is to be expelled from Poland as part of the anti-Zionist campaign.  As he is boarding the train, Roman looks most vulnerable, the lone traveler without a family member or friend to wish him well.  At the last minute, he sees Kamila watching him from behind a fence.  Perhaps Kamila’s decision to come to the station is her way of closing this chapter in her life; she needs to see Roman leaving to know that their relationship really is at an end.  Yet perhaps Kamila still cares for Roman.  Regardless of which is the case, when Kamila and Roman share a final look, the film reminds us that their intentions were initially aligned: They both longed to move up in the world and live the good life, as they knew it, together.  And in Roman’s final smile there seems to be an understanding that, despite everything, he is significant enough for Kamila to watch him leave.

Edited by Jane Chen and Alex Radek

Blog Post on Reverse

In Borys Lankosz’s film Reverse, the protagonists must conduct “business as usual” under the dramatically unusual circumstances that the Stalinist reign imposed on the citizens of Warsaw. Fear, paranoia and corruption are exhibited on two levels: through the main film plot and through the societal norms visible through the film’s depictions of Poland in 1952. The world is not a serene place and normalcy contains pernicious elements, such as corruption, fear and delinquent behavior. The secret police are portrayed as omnipresent and omnipotent in the film, maybe not observable directly but always perceptible in the background.  The family takes every single precaution to comply with the government’s edicts. Examples include the mother giving up her drugstore and Sabina’s brother painting artworks in the style of socialist realism.  One of the early scenes shows Sabina, the protagonist of the film, speaking to her mother and trying to figure out what to do with a small foreign gold coin that her mother owns. Sabina decides to hide the coin by systematically swallowing and excreting it every day. Sabina’s daily concealing of the gold coin marked “liberté” daily demonstrates a fear and a paranoia that reaches into private spaces – both domestic and human.

Reverse makes liberal use of film noir techniques. The choice to shoot the film in black and white, the stark contrasts with lighting, the unbalanced camera frames, and a few classic noir shots effectively made the film eerie and unnerving. The shadowy noir lighting of this film emphasizes the moral duality of its characters.  One of its most classically noir scenes of the film shows how Bronisław rescues Sabina from two robbers. The scene begins with Bronek’s face in shadow, which is then slightly illuminated by him lighting a cigarette. He looks like the epitome of a noir character with a stern face and trench coat.  In its new context the trench coat gains new meaning: in American noir film, the protagonist detective works in a trench coat, whereas in Stalinist Poland, the trench coat signals an informer. As the film continues, Bronek’s persona becomes increasingly sinister through noir tactics such as the wide-lens close up when he peers in at the front door and the “crowded” feeling the viewer gets as Bronek becomes physical with Sabina.
           Another noir technique that is frequently seen in Reverse is the use

of closely framed shots.  Seeing characters through peepholes, windows, or doorways amplifies the claustrophobic effect of film noir, especially because the camera usually starts zooming in so that we cannot see the entire person initially.  Mirrors are also prevalent in the film. Sabina’s full figure and face can only be seen within the mirror’s reflection. Mirrors are present in the bathroom as Sabina attempts to swallow the coin again. The presence of mirrors suggests that Sabina is always being watched, even if only by her own reflection. This lends itself to the heightened paranoia of the period.

Film noir’s iconic “rat in a maze” image occurs many times in Reverse, especially

after the murder of Bronek.  In one instance we see Sabina throw some belongings of Bronek from a bridge. The camera zooms out, and the viewer sees an image of Sabina standing alone with the ledge on one side and a moving train on the opposite side, engendering a sense of complete entrapment.  When Sabina and her mother Irena drag Bronek’s body up the stairs to her brother’s apartment, they are shot from above, positioning them as, in a sense, victimized villains.  A different kind of shot from above is used in filming Bronek’s rape of Sabina on her dining room table. She is again portrayed as powerless to extricate herself from that particular situation. Her powerlessness is two-fold; first she would be unable to physically restrain Bronek if she tried, and second, she is anxious and curious to experience sex, and restrains herself for that reason as well. The sex scene also features low-angle, strangely lit shots of Bronek, further painting him as distrustful.

The film unfolds from Sabina’s point of view, using the expressions on her face

to advance the narrative. This is congruent with noir films shot from the perspective of the detective or “private eye.” The development of the hero’s role is usually wrapped in mystery, where he is a loner and his personal life is no one’s business. Yet we delve into Sabina’s life at home with her mother and grandmother. Sabina alone is not the protagonist: her mother and grandmother are essential helpers in Sabina’s quest to survive and transcend the stifling throes of Stalinism. While initially appearing to be a fragile, innocent young woman, Sabina reveals herself to be a surprisingly strong character capable of killing to protect herself and those close to her.

Sabina lives modestly and keeps very much to herself.  Her bashful disposition makes it hard to imagine that she could be assertive. Pervasive fear makes her qualities mousey: she stutters and shakes when speaking to figures of authority, like her boss. She doesn’t have a commanding presence; despite her height, Sabina makes herself seem incredibly small and unimportant.  Yet Sabina does aspire to be heroic by performing subtle acts of defiance—such as attempting to swallow the forbidden gold coin instead of handing it over to the authorities. She is a quiet heroine, epitomized during the first time she swallows the coin and asks to hear music from Madame Butterfly. Swallowing the coin repeatedly to Italian opera music, Sabina envisions herself an extraordinary hero forced to live an ordinary life. She regrets not participating in the Uprising, which suggests that for most of her life, she could not muster the courage to act on her fantasies.

Lankosz clearly used Sabina’s character to show that the lives of civilians in Stalinist Poland were not the tales of heroes and villains that other Polish films portray. Instead, the lines were much more blurred – innocent civilians like Sabina simply wanted to continue their lives in peace, but were sometimes forced to take extreme actions. Her decision to kill Bronislaw and end his hold over her is swift and calculated. However, Sabina apologizes to Bronek after she poisons him. By killing Bronek, Sabina is not making a moral judgment. She is simply saving herself.  She aspires to be heroic when she volunteers to commit suicide after she murders Bronislaw. She does not want to create further problems for her family.

In noir films the femme fatale was a beautiful, duplicitous woman who seduces the main character with looks, charm, and sexual allure.  She aims to lower his defenses and lead him into a deadly situation. Reverse’s gender swapped noir adaptation continues with an homme fatale character.  Bronek is the secret policeman who begins a false courtship with Sabina, attempting to seduce her into informing on her boss. Bronek is seductive in his handsome looks and charming demeanor, “sly tactics [employed] to establish total control.” The elevator scene shows Bronek tightly embracing Sabina, all her office papers flying to the floor in disarray.  Bronek’s role is made more intriguing in that his character is historically based.  It did not take much imagination or exaggeration to develop a homme fatale in Soviet Poland, for history made many. Bronek symbolizes the state power which is beyond individuals’ control or understanding. His initial politeness and attractiveness allude to the communist regime’s promise of a stable, rich and simplistic future. His almost impossible knowledge of the gold coin represents the omnipotent police presence. The rape and the subsequent poisoning scene thus sets up the stage for the final confrontation between the male and female, the perpetrator and the victim, the state and the individual. In other words, the Stalinist state’s ugly, anti-artistic, masculine power speaks through Bronek’s body.

Sabina’s murder of Bronek thwarts the state’s intrusion into her private sphere of family.  She succeeds in hollowing out a shelter against the corruption, manipulation, and destruction of the State in that she successfully rids herself of Bronek, the enactor of the State’s will. However, in eradicating Bronek, Sabina embodies that corruption in herself, corrupting her morals to carryout murder.  Sabina wants the corruption and evils of Bronek to end with her generation by personally carrying the burden of truth. Her generation sacrifices, internalizing the ugly truth, to protect her son’s generation from the bleak atrocities of the past. The paintings of her brother Arkadiusz in the present flash-forwards also illustrate this internalized past; distorted skeletons and grey people fill his canvases.

Sabina is also able to create a new, better life.  Bronek’s rape left Sabina with child.  Through pregnancy and birth, she physically transforms this past atrocity into the hopeful future of her son. She lies to her son about his father, telling stories of Bronek defending Poland in the Warsaw Uprising. In the flash-forwards, her son is vibrant, kind, and confident. The lie that Sabina told him has allowed him to flourish.  Sabina’s sending of her son to America physically distances him from Polish communism. Furthermore, her son is openly gay—an idea that would never have been accepted in Bronek’s time but reflects the transition to Sabina’s view of a more progressive society in modern-day Poland.

The airport as one setting for the film’s flash-forwards is symbolic of all that Poland has become. It serves as a crossroads for the generations.  A board shows flights to and from every corner of the globe: New York, London, Paris, etc.  Poland has survived Communist times and become a modern force. But not one that forgets its past, as is evidenced by the shot of the cemetery on All Saints Day at the end of the film. Sabina’s commemorative gesture, lighting a candle at the Palace of Arts and Culture where she had buried the bones of Bronisław represents another nod to remembering the past.

Edited by Agata Kantorowska and Halina Krzystek