First off, I’d like to apologize for getting so literary with this column. I always assume Matt breaks down in tears whenever sees one of my posts. I do have reviews of Federico Fellini’s La Strada, John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast (which might just have one of the greatest and most compact scripts in cinema history) in line; however, they are not finished. I also want to talk about the amazing pop cultural pastiche that is The Venture Bros. sometime down the road as well. I was in the process of working on a two part piece about liberature (no, I spelled it right) and how video games can provide hints to literature’s ability to remain valid in the 21^st century, when I decided it would be best to do something a little more…light. Don’t worry though, the literary torture will resume next week.

In the meantime, since I’ve been living in Poland for five years this month, I thought it might be fun to make some general observations about Polish pop culture from an American’s perspective.

MOVIES:

The major summer movies have been opening simultaneously with the States; however, there have been terrible exceptions, such as The Dark Knight (Mroczny rycerz) opening three weeks later. Do you know how hard it is to remain spoiler free of something like The Dark Knight three weeks after it’s been released in the States? I believe Hellboy II is finally being released this week. And while late release dates are enough to bum me out, what’s worse is having cinemas showing a Theo Angelopoulos marathon or movies like The Host and having no way to enjoy it with Polish subtitles. It feels so cruel.

Kieslowski

As far as Polish cinema goes, like American cinema, it is hit and miss. The old reliable standby is the great writer-director Krzysztof Kieslowski who continues to cast a long shadow on Polish cinema twelve years after his death. I’m still getting my head around all of the Polish directors, but the notable ones I’ve enjoyed have been Andrzej Wajda, who directed the Oscar nominated Katyn, a movie that was extremely well done despite treading the same post-Communistic themes that plague Polish cinema. Agnieszka Holland, who had directed Europa Europa and Copying Beethoven, is also quite good, and I really enjoyed her work on, of all things, HBO’s The Wire. Then there is Joanna Kos and Krzysztof Krauze, who directed Plac Zbawiciela (Saviour Square), an excellent drama that borders on tragedy.

TELEVISION:

Polish television is overflowing with American programming from television shows like Heroes to Prison Break to Desperate Housewives, as well as a plethora of American reality shows. I don’t generally watch these shows, not because I’m a snob (Prison Break is so gleefully ridiculous you can’t help but embrace it) but because Polish television does not generally use subtitles. Now, you’d think that they’d employ dubbing like Italy and Germany does, with various actors doing the different parts in Polish, but then you would be imagining a world where Poland actually paid for that kind of thing. Instead, foreign programming has this guy who talks over the shows. He doesn’t convey any emotion or stress any particular line, he simply reads the Polish translation over the show. He’s quiet enough for you to hear the show’s music and sound effects, but too loud to actually hear any of the original dialogue. This man, whoever he is, is an evil omnipresence on Polish television, and he must be stopped.

Na Wspolnej

As far as original Polish shows, you have the basic soap operas like M jak milosc and Na Wspólnej (slow like honey, and yet, strangely addictive); crime shows like W11 (an awful cross between COPS and The Blair Witch Project) and Kryminalni; actions shows like Twarza w twarz; talk shows like Kuba Wojewodzki and Szymon Majewski; reality shows like World Idol (their version of American Idol which appeared to be as equally obnoxious and painful), Big Brother (it’s amazing how I can hate so many people without understanding everything they’re saying) and Taniec z gwiazdami (a dancing show); and dramas like Magda M. (which I believe has good crossover appeal, despite superficially being the Polish answer to Ally McBeal) and 39 I pól.

BOOKS:

And we’re back to books.

I’m very hesitant to read Polish writers because I’ve yet to find one that lives up to the hype. I don’t know if

The Emperor

it’s a cultural thing or what, but Polish writing has left me more disappointed than inspired; which is why I was late to the party when it comes to Ryszard Kapuscinski. His book, The Emperor, is considered mandatory reading for any student in Poland, and as a writer, Kapuscinski is practically a national treasure. And deservedly so. The Emperor, recently re-published by Penguin books as the second book in a projected trilogy on absolute power, is the book I’ve been waiting for. It’s a bit of experimental journalism, especially for its time, that’s both challenging and objective. Told from multiple points of view, the book is a riveting historical account of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie whose reign ended in 1974. Kapuscinski had covered the fall of the emperor as it happened, and when approached to write a book about it, he decided to try a different approach and sought out the surviving courtiers to hear their stories. The final product is harrowing and sad, and at times contradictory. The approach reminds me of the William Faulkner quote where he teaches thirteen ways to look at a blackbird and the student will form a fourteenth image that will resemble the truth of the blackbird. And when it’s all said and done, Kapuscinski has given us a dozen ways to view Selassie, and ultimately, it’s up to us to decide what the truth is.

Another Day of Life, another book in Kapuscinski’s “trilogy”, is everything that The Emperor is not while being equally enthralling. This time, Kapuscinski covers the Angolan war and gives an account of the chaos and despair in Angola as it gets its independence from Portugal in 1975. This is a war that would eventually last 27 years, and given the details Kapuscinski makes clear in his book, it’s easy to see why it did. Whereas The Emperor is experimental in its delivery, Another Day in Life is straight forward journalism. In fact, if you can imagine Hunter S. Thompson in a war zone without the drugs and alcohol, you can pretty much imagine the kind of book you’re getting here. There are some absolutely shocking moments in this book, as well as some beautiful ones. Kapuscinski’s nonfiction writing is some of the best I’ve read in a while. And considering I knew next to nothing about Angola, and could really care less about its civil war, I can’t properly convey how surprised I was to be enjoying the hell out of the book.

WHORING:

GUD #3

No, not that kind of whoring.

If you’re interested in my experiences in Poland, you might want to pick up the most recent issue of GUD Magazine, where you can read COUNTING NUNS, an early account of my living here involving needles and, of course, nuns. Previously, GUD published MAD DOGS, a piece involving my experience with the American Secret Service when they were in Krakow. If none of those pieces sound terribly interesting, you should still check out the magazine; I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the quality and diversity of the publication.

Thanks for reading.

This is TOO SOON.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 7:48 pm and is filed under Too Soon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.