Film: Man Of Marble
Running time: 160 mins
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Starring: Krystyna Janda, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Jacek Lomnicki, Michal Tarkowski
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Region 1 release.
The political censors blocked the concept for Man Of Marble for fifteen years under the communist regime. The socialist Stalinist era of 1950s Poland only allowed heavily censored, socialist realist films to be made and shown, but this film slipped through the net.
The film itself begins in 1970s Poland, where you meet Agnieszka. She is a final year University student studying film. Agnieszka is set upon filming a controversial documentary about a bricklayer, Mateusz Birkut, who was very famous in the 1950s, and enjoyed a short career as a champion of socialist work. Agnieszka wants to find out why he was chosen by the state to represent the working class, why he was forever immortalised as a marble statue, and how he fell from such a height of popularity to nothing. Agnieszka wants to understand how Birkut disappeared.
The aim, through Agnieszka’s search, is for the film to expose the hidden truth, the people behind Birkut’s rise to fame, and the people who he was close to…
The beauty of the film is seen through the eyes of Agnieszka and her film crew. Time after time after time, they are put down and told that they cannot embark upon a project like this. It is too risky, she is told, and could put the reputation of the film school at risk.
As a viewer, it feels like Wajda is tempting you into joining the film crew and Agnieszka, on their almost Scooby-doo like approach to searching for the Socialist case of the Man Of Marble, although this is primarily due to the awfully cheesy music aimed at the 1970s film goers.
What is visible in this film, which is present in so many of Wajda’s films, is how the plot of the film is intensely reflective of the historical aspects of filmmaking. From the Russian standard of propaganda cinematography, to having to lie and sneak around a fine art museum in Warsaw, simply to finding small remains of the Man Of Marble, the film covers all aspects of the stranglehold of propaganda cinematography during the Communist era, and Poland’s desire to cover up, and to hide all aspects of red history. Birkut was a product of Wadja. The idea of the character was a creation of communism, an invention, cut and edited to taste.
To re-live the socialist underpinnings of the newsreel footage, Wajda incorporates socialist imagery into them. Wajda not only re-creates the 1950s by referring to that period’s propaganda newsreels, but also by alluding to classic socialist realist paintings. Imagery of Stalin, red and white roses to connote the colours of communism, rallies with hundreds of worker attendees all add to the skilfully made fabricated footage, which are represented as recently found footage.
To put politics aside, Wajda fulfils a mammoth task of creating, then building on the depth of characters in the film. Agnieszka, throughout the whole film, sticks to her original plan to stick to the truth. Her biggest characteristic is her authority over men. Her whole film crew are men, she controls them and she makes the decisions. This is in disparity with Birkut, who is owned by the people. A normal working class man, loved by his fellow man, but he hates himself inside.
An incredible stare into the world of communist propaganda, mirrored through Wajda’s insatiable appetite for reflexivity. A thought provoking film classic that will make you think again about Poland’s never-ending fight for freedom. RT
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