Katarzyna Taras
Alchemy. About the Art of Cinematography
We start with an earthquake...

It is difficult to write an article on the eve of a film festival. First of all, because it is inappropriate to indicate one's favourites and second of all, it is unwelcome to reveal the film plots. I have seen most of the films which will be presented at Plus Camerimage 2011, I can't remain indifferent to a few of them and at least three seem to be some of the most significant titles of this year. It will get personal again.

And maybe the draft could be treated as a particular kind of an adjective?

It will start with “an earthquake", as the festival will be opened with a Polish premiere of Roman Polański's latest film “Carnage" with ascetic images by Paweł Edelman. In this movie there is something similar to claustrophobic atmosphere of “Cul-de-sac". The history which starts like a burlesque, and ends like ... And this four-actors outstanding performance. Yet perfect acting is a standard in Roman Polański's productions, and so is masterly manipulation of tension and misleading a viewer.

Still from "Carnage"
The main competition for the Golden Frog (just after the screening of “Carnage", hence reference to “the earthquake", of course in emotional sense) will begin with “Shame" by Steve McQueen. “Shame" is an almost ideal construction (“almost" because perfection doesn't exist solely in the nature), from which cutting out even one element found redundant is impossible. There are no such elements here. For a long time I haven't seen on the screen such emptiness and such a hollow character, as Michael Fassbender has played it and proved at the same time how consciously one's body, which for an actor is only a tool, can be used. For an aware actor of course, and that's a fact that not every actor can use such instrument well. And there are also Sean Bobbit's images, thanks to which McQueen's movie thrills with coldness, lack of emotions. But both the coldness and the emptiness - sifted through his sensitivity and skills, “dreamed" by him (as I have written several times trying to define what a cinematographer does) - fascinate and hypnotize. “Shame" was noticed at this year's film festival in Venice, and so were “Wuthering Heights", which in Andrei Arnold's interpretation don't remind previous adaptations of Emily Bronte's novel. Arnold's adaptation is not so much the most faithful filming (theorists have been arguing for a long time whether such thing as a faithful adaptation exists at all?), as it is the closest to the novel's style. Andrea Arnold and Robbie Ryean (a cinematographer) show that the feeling between Catherine and Heatcliff concerns very young, thus experiencing everything extremely intensively people. They convince that love is a particular kind of a disease, or at least - a pathological condition. Everything is soaked in loud colours, unfriendly light, the dynamics of a camera, the composition of a shot, sometimes abandoned by the character.

Still from "Shame"
In Berlin, however, Asghar Fargadi's “A Separation" with Mahmoud Kalari's images was distinguished (the winner of this year's Berlinale will be screened in Bydgoszcz as well). In “A Separation" the shots cool down alike the emotions of the female character, whom we trust and whose reasons for not being able to live with her husband we understand. In Berlin Wojciech Staroń's images to “El Premio" by Paula Markovitch were awarded. I have already raved about this movie, for example in this column, for a few times, therefore now I will only remind that the author managed to visualize the situation of recollecting the dark past by a now adult woman whose childhood was tattered by junta's reign. And that the colour scheme of the film is organized by the hues of the Argentinian flag, incidentally a very important element of the whole story.

Finally Cannes, if we “jump" from festival to festival... And the essay about Terrence Malick's fatherhood. By means of “The Tree of Life" the author of “The Thin Red Line" took the floor in the slowly approaching and more and more loudly sounding discussion about what defines a man. The essay on a difficult topic, yet Emmanuel Lubezky's images cannot be resisted.

It would be a pity to miss “Smukke Mennesker" by Mikkel Munch-Fals, in which Eric Kress has almost worked a miracle - the sequence from the porn movie set (in this production we have “a film in a film") transforms in front of our eyes in one of the most beautiful love recognitions which I have ever dealt with in cinema. This time “something" which starts like a burlesque, finishes like a fable, or at least a credible, character- and viewer-friendly story.

Still from "The Tree of Life"
Exactly, the characters... In this year's films from the main competition a certain tendency is visible. In the centre of all productions there is a human being. It is the Character, and not the Story, Politics, Show, whom all director's and most of all cinematographer's endeavours serve. This year there will be presented such productions in which the condition of a human being is tried to be discussed or at least described. A man in love, involved in a war, unfulfilled, lustful or blasé. An antihero - like in McQueen's film. Or a hero - like in “Rose", which I am not afraid to call the best Polish film of this year. (Agata Kulesza and Marcin Dorociński should receive all actors awards in the world!). I am impressed by th cinematographer's work done in Wojciech Smarzowski's film by Piotr Sobociński Jr. The young artist showed great maturity and moderation which are present in every shot. Especially in a very intense sequence of torturing Tadeusz. And in the finale which is played without words. The vision is enough and can't be forgotten.

We will also see an antihero who transforms into a hero. Such metamorphosis is shown by Robert Więckiewicz in Agnieszka Holland's latest movie “In Darkness", in which the author of images, that is Jolanta Dylewska, had to face both the story inspired by authentic events and the challenges of presumably unfavourable location. And she succeeded in this attempt.

Still from "In Darkness"
We will also see simply a good man (as usually in Kaurismaki's films) in an intelligently stylized, but not over-stylized, “Le Havre", with images by Timo Salminen who, as hardly anyone, can show even an ordinary face in an extraordinary way.

Finally “Coriolanus", Ralph Fiennes director's debut with Barry Ackroyd's images. When we remind ourselves that Ackroyd cooperated with Ken Loach and that he took photos for “The Hurt Locker", we won't be surprised by the fact that Fiennes presents us such modern Shakespeare.

I don't know how to define it of I don't want it to sound arrogant, but in the Polish competition two images of Poland will clash, or maybe it's better to write “will engage in a dialogue". The past, interpreted by Feliks Falk and Piotr Śliskowski - “Joanna", and by Antoni Krauze and Jacek Petrycki - “Black Thursday", will gain a modern commentary, which is a consequence of filtering “here and now" through the sensitivity of today's 30- and 40-year-olds, who were able to tell about something more on the basis of a very concrete anecdote. About becoming a father - as it is in “The Fear of Height" by Bartek Konopka and Piotr Niemyjski. About the lack of ability to become a mother - as it is in “Ki" by Leszek Dawid and Łukasz Gutta. About invalidation of the past, because we live here and now and this is the most important - “Mole" by Rafael Lewandowski and Piotr Rosołowski. About fear - “Courage" by Greg Zgliński and Witold Płóciennik. We will also see “Suicide Room" by Jan Komasa and Radosław Ładczuk, thus we will find out what the cinema of the future will look like. And probably we will succumb to the charm of “Daas" by Adrian Panek, which isn't a historical film at all in spite of the historical costume it wears, but which is surely a proof that sometimes a cinematographer - in this case Arkadiusz Tomiak - can catch red-handed the “spirit" of places.

Still from "Rose"
As far as the directors' and cinematographers' debuts competition is concerned, it is best to watch everything and then support your favourites, or possibly assess them - if they disappointed us. (The same with students' etudes competition.) What I remembered in particular, what I cannot forget and with what I will associate this year's edition of Plus Camerimage is: visual and acting intensity in “Kidnapped" (directed by Miguel Angel Vives, cinematography by Pedro J. Marquez); playing with “machismo" in Chilean melodrama about a relationship between a boxer Octavio and all-confused Hugo, “My Last Round" (directed by Julio Jorquera, cinematography by Sergio Armstrong); and finally a very convincing description of a mechanism of infecting with death, which we will encounter in a story about rehabilitation, that is in “Breathing" (directed by Karl Markovics, cinematography by Martin Gschleft).

Of course the common element of all productions presented during Plus Camerimage 2011 is the fact that all films boast good cinematography, that is images which only tell a story.