Slawomir Fabicki graduated from the National Polish film school in Lodz. He makes films in the vein of serious Polish Cinema, by way of drama, a Polish genre of choice. And he does drama well. His diploma film, Meska Sprawa (A Man Thing) was nominated for an academy award for best foreign film. His next film and first feature, Z Odzysku (Retrieval), has been gaining similar attention and may have similar results. Fabicki might just be one of Poland's next great filmmakers.
Go as far as to say Fabicki is the next Kieslowski, albeit modern. The issues are the same. Human loss. Waning morality. The grey between good and bad. Fabicki approaches these matters without an upper handed morality or pretense. He balances things out. He shows how good can come from a bad choice and bad can come from a good one. He shows realistic characters living in realistic environments, who make epic decisions. And he does this convincingly, as Kieslowski did. Fabicki is modern though, because he shows these issues in today's world using today's filmic conventions, respectively, unemployment, immigration and drugs, with long documentary hand-held shots, hard cutting and parallel scenes and then some.
Retrieval is about a young man, Wojtek, who wants to provide his Ukrainian girlfriend and her kid with a financially comfortable life. But he reaches these ends by means that result in him loosing everything. His morality sways in his attempts to make real the ideals which he envisions. They diminish in the name of materialism. He wants to give her simple things. A house. Money. But she wants to reach this level of comfort by way of hard and honest work. Though, she does works in a strip club. But she is only a janitor there. And yet in order to avoid such dishonest circumstances which Wojtek has gotten everyone in she is willing to give her body to the hustler. No one is perfect.
We can also look at Retrieval like this: The hustler is the realist. He finds financial security and safety for his family by manipulating others to do his dirty work while he reaps the material rewards. Unlike Wojtek he is willing to get what he wants at all costs, with no doubts or restraints. The hustler has no limits to his immorality he is the modern man. Fabicki professes that the moral man will have it harder, will have to teeter between the means to a comfortable life and what is moral. He may fail at first, as does Wojtek, by loosing everything, but he will continue because he knows what he wants, it is just a matter of finding the means to get there. Being good is not easy. Being good and living comfortably is even harder. We see Fabicki doing what Kieslowski did. And like Kieslowski, Fabicki, despite the trouble his characters face, the seemingly never ending trouble, at the end we see hope. Woytek, beaten and battered by circumstance, he struggles to move forward, repent, and try again.
In a catholic country where religious tradition has been tied to daily life and consequently politics, issues of morality become prominent in art. (Uhem, not just Poland. But so much it is visible, especially in the national cinema.) Considering the recent history of Poland the rocky transition to capitalism and entrance into the EU, corruption and unemployment, and before that it was communism, and before that WW2 Fabicki has successfully tapped into a cultural soft spot of pain and projected it via film. And however common it is for filmmakers in Poland to focus on similar subject matter tied to the pains of the ingrained culture and history of Poland Fabicki does it successfully with honesty and, simply, taste.
Go as far as to say Fabicki is the next Kieslowski, albeit modern. The issues are the same. Human loss. Waning morality. The grey between good and bad. Fabicki approaches these matters without an upper handed morality or pretense. He balances things out. He shows how good can come from a bad choice and bad can come from a good one. He shows realistic characters living in realistic environments, who make epic decisions. And he does this convincingly, as Kieslowski did. Fabicki is modern though, because he shows these issues in today's world using today's filmic conventions, respectively, unemployment, immigration and drugs, with long documentary hand-held shots, hard cutting and parallel scenes and then some.
Retrieval is about a young man, Wojtek, who wants to provide his Ukrainian girlfriend and her kid with a financially comfortable life. But he reaches these ends by means that result in him loosing everything. His morality sways in his attempts to make real the ideals which he envisions. They diminish in the name of materialism. He wants to give her simple things. A house. Money. But she wants to reach this level of comfort by way of hard and honest work. Though, she does works in a strip club. But she is only a janitor there. And yet in order to avoid such dishonest circumstances which Wojtek has gotten everyone in she is willing to give her body to the hustler. No one is perfect.
We can also look at Retrieval like this: The hustler is the realist. He finds financial security and safety for his family by manipulating others to do his dirty work while he reaps the material rewards. Unlike Wojtek he is willing to get what he wants at all costs, with no doubts or restraints. The hustler has no limits to his immorality he is the modern man. Fabicki professes that the moral man will have it harder, will have to teeter between the means to a comfortable life and what is moral. He may fail at first, as does Wojtek, by loosing everything, but he will continue because he knows what he wants, it is just a matter of finding the means to get there. Being good is not easy. Being good and living comfortably is even harder. We see Fabicki doing what Kieslowski did. And like Kieslowski, Fabicki, despite the trouble his characters face, the seemingly never ending trouble, at the end we see hope. Woytek, beaten and battered by circumstance, he struggles to move forward, repent, and try again.
In a catholic country where religious tradition has been tied to daily life and consequently politics, issues of morality become prominent in art. (Uhem, not just Poland. But so much it is visible, especially in the national cinema.) Considering the recent history of Poland the rocky transition to capitalism and entrance into the EU, corruption and unemployment, and before that it was communism, and before that WW2 Fabicki has successfully tapped into a cultural soft spot of pain and projected it via film. And however common it is for filmmakers in Poland to focus on similar subject matter tied to the pains of the ingrained culture and history of Poland Fabicki does it successfully with honesty and, simply, taste.
