Kinoblog

While researching something else (as is always the way), I stumbled upon former Guardian critic Derek Malcolm’s A Century of Films - a survey of his personal Top 100, with a robust defence of each film’s inclusion.

And on glancing down the list again for the first time since 2001, I notice that nine of his choices came from central and eastern Europe (or, in the case of Blanche, from a Polish filmmaker adapting a Polish play). This is perhaps unsurprising for a critic who came of age in the 1960s when Jancsó, Tarkovsky and the Czech New Wave dominated cinematic proceedings, but it’s gratifying nonetheless.

So here’s a direct link to his individual reviews:

• Andrei Rublev (Андрей Рублёв, d. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966, USSR)
• Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i diament, d. Andrzej Wajda, 1958, Poland)
• Blanche (d. Walerian Borowczyk, 1970, France)
• Closely Observed Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, d. Jiri Menzel, 1966, Czechoslovakia)
• Love (Szerelem, d. Károly Makk, 1971, Hungary)
• The Round-Up (Szegénylegények, d. Miklós Jancsó, 1965, Hungary)
• A Short Film About Killing (Krótki film o zabijaniu, d. Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1987, Poland)
• Strike (Стачка, d. Sergei Eisenstein, 1925, USSR)
• W.R. - Mysteries of the Organism (W.R. - Misterije organizma, d. Dušan Makavejev, 1970, Yugoslavia)

Warsaw’s Centre for Contemporary Art (CCW) is currently hosting a major survey of work in various media by Walerian Borowczyk, including a near-complete retrospective of his films.

There’s more information on their website, as well as a brief piece on it in the Warsaw Business Journal.

The exhibition moves to Poznań in the summer, where I hope to catch it myself.

Someone stumbled upon this site in quest of information about Walerian Borowczyk’s films on DVD. So just in case they return…

1958 - House (Dom, IMDB)

• Included in PWA’s Anthology of Polish Animation, Region 0 PAL (with English subtitles)

1958 - School (Szkola, IMDB)

• Included in PWA’s Anthology of Polish Animation, Region 0 PAL (with English subtitles)

1960 - Les Astronautes (IMDB)

• Included as an extra on Gaumont-Columbia TriStar’s La Bête, France, Region 2 PAL (no spoken dialogue)
• Included as an extra on Columbia TriStar’s Goto, l’isola dell’amore, Italy, Region 2 PAL (no spoken dialogue)
• Included as an extra on Cult Epics’ Goto, Island of Love, US, Region 0 NTSC (no spoken dialogue)
• Included in Cult Epics’ The Walerian Borowczyk Collection, US, Region 0 NTSC (with the features Goto, Island of Love, The Beast and Love Rites)

1963 - Renaissance (IMDB)

• Included as an extra on Gaumont-Columbia TriStar’s La Bête, France, Region 2 PAL (no spoken dialogue)

1964 - Les Jeux des Anges (IMDB)

• Included as an extra on Gaumont-Columbia TriStar’s La Bête, France, Region 2 PAL (no spoken dialogue)

1966 - Rosalie (IMDB)

• Included as an extra on Gaumont-Columbia TriStar’s La Bête, France, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, no subtitles - though a translation of the original Guy de Maupassant story, which the film follows almost word-for-word, can be found here)

1968 - Goto, Island of Love (Goto, l’île d’amour, IMDB)

• Contes immoraux/Goto, l’île d’amour, Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL, Region 2 (French dialogue, no subtitles)
• Goto, l’isola dell’amore, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL, Region 2 (French with fixed Italian subtitles, or dubbed Italian)
• Goto, Island of Love, Cult Epics, US, NTSC, Region 0 (French with optional English subtitles)
• Included in Cult Epics’ The Walerian Borowczyk Collection, US, Region 0 NTSC (with the features The Beast and Love Rites plus the short Les Astronautes)

1973 - Une Collection particulière (IMDB)

• Included as an extra on Gaumont-Columbia TriStar’s La Bête, France, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, no subtitles, shorter version)
• Included as an extra on Columbia TriStar’s Goto, l’isola dell’amore, Italy, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, Italian subtitles, shorter version)

1974 - Immoral Tales (Contes immoraux, IMDB)

• Anchor Bay, US, Region 0 NTSC (French with English subtitles plus English dub)
• Nouveaux Pictures, UK, Region 0 PAL (French with English subtitles)
• Contes immoraux/Goto, l’île d’amour, Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL, Region 2 (French dialogue, no subtitles)
• Racconti immorali, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL, Region 2 (French with fixed Italian subtitles, or dubbed Italian)

1975 - The Story of Sin (Dzieje grzechu, IMDB)

• Nouveaux Pictures, Region 0 PAL (Polish with English subtitles)

1975 - The Beast (La Bête, IMDB)

• Cult Epics, US, Region 0 NTSC (French with English subtitles plus English dub)
• Nouveaux Pictures, UK, Region 0 PAL (French with English subtitles)
• La Bête, Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL, Region 2 (French dialogue, no subtitles)
• La bestia, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL, Region 2 (French with fixed Italian subtitles, or dubbed Italian)

1975 - Escargot de Venus

• Included as an extra on Columbia TriStar’s Racconti immorali, Italy, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, Italian subtitles)

1976 - The Streetwalker (La Marge, IMDB)

• Pioneer (Japan), Region 2 NTSC (French dialogue, Japanese subtitles only)

1977 - Behind Convent Walls (Interno di un convento, IMDB)

• Nouveaux Pictures, Region 0 PAL (English dub only)

1977 - L’Amour monstre de tous les temps (IMDB)

• Included as an extra on Columbia TriStar’s La bestia, Italy, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, Italian subtitles)

1979 - Immoral Women (Les Héroïnes du mal, IMDB)

• Severin Films, US, Region 0 NTSC (French with English subtitles or dubbed English)
• Tre donne immorali?, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL, Region 2 (French with fixed Italian subtitles, or dubbed Italian)

1979 - L’Armoire (IMDB)

• Included in Severin Films’ Private Collections, US, Region 0 NTSC (French with English subtitles or dubbed English)

1980 - Lulu (IMDB)

• LCJ Editions, France, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, no subtitles)

1983 - The Art of Love (Ars Amandi, IMDB)

• Millennium Storm, Italy, Region 2 PAL (Italian dialogue, no subtitles)

1984 - Scherzo Infernal (IMDB)

• Included as an extra on Gaumont-Columbia TriStar’s La Bête, France, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, no subtitles)
• Included as an extra on Columbia TriStar’s Goto, l’isola dell’amore, Italy, Region 2 PAL (French dialogue, Italian subtitles)

1987 - Emmanuelle 5 (IMDB)

• New Concorde, US, Region 0 NTSC (English, no subtitles)
• UCA Catalogue, UK, Region 0 PAL (English, no subtitles)
• Legocart, Italy, Region 2 PAL (dubbed Italian, no subtitles)

1988 - Love Rites (Cérémonie d’amour, IMDB)

• Pagan, UK, Region 0 PAL (French with English subtitles)
• Cult Epics, US, Region 0 NTSC (French with English subtitles)
• Included in Cult Epics’ The Walerian Borowczyk Collection, US, Region 0 NTSC (with the features Goto, Island of Love and The Beast plus the short Les Astronautes)
• Regina della notte, Legocart, Italy, Region 2 PAL (dubbed Italian, no subtitles)

Feature films not (yet?) available on DVD

1967 - The Theatre of Mr & Mrs Kabal (Le Théâtre de Monsieur et Madame Kabal, IMDB)
1971 - Blanche (IMDB)
1981 - The Blood of Dr Jekyll (Docteur Jekyll et les femmes, IMDB)

Any additions and/or corrections gratefully received.

Further to my post of 8th June about a new two-DVD survey of key Polish animated short films, the Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne site has just uploaded official details - in Polish only at present, but an English translation will doubtless follow.

More good news is that the list of titles I uploaded was incomplete - there are actually 28 films in total. The two I omitted were the most recent, Tomek Bagiński’s Katedra (2002) and Marek Skrobecki’s Ichthys (2005). The page also confirms that the set will have English subtitles.

It’s also now available from Polish online retailer Merlin.pl, from whom I’ve just placed an order. Even including postage, it came to only just over a tenner, which has to be the bargain of the year.

Polish poster design is one of the frequently unsung glories of the visual arts over the past century. Many Polish filmmakers, including Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica, started out as poster designers, and many other major Polish artists made memorable contributions to the form.

Their influence has been far-reaching - when I interviewed the Quay Brothers last year for their DVD Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003 (the same interview is on the US edition, Phantom Museums or, if you need French subtitles, on Frères Quay: Courts-métrages d’animation), they not only insisted on highlighting Polish poster art as one of their primary influences, but also treated me (and that was very much the operative word) to a guided tour of their own collection, some of which ended up on camera. Here’s what they had to say:

We arrived from our little village to the Philadelphia College of Art to study painting and drawing and we’d more or less chosen that over the idea that we could have been gymnasts. Our father was more or less saying “you have an opportunity to do one of two things: you can be gym teachers or artists”, and in the end we opted for trying to become artists. And on that day that we entered the doors of the college we saw this fabulous exhibition of Polish posters which was consummate in terms of the imagery that was assaulting us, the typography, the names which were unpronounceable, but in a way, on inspection and through the next year or so, we researched all these names of posters, names like Borowczyk, Lenica, Starowieyski, Cieslewicz, Tomaszewski and each one, for sure… through the research we realised that Lenica made animation films after having done posters, and Borowczyk made animation films and went on to make feature films, and it probably set a tiny star for us to maybe inherit.

At their suggestion, I ended up adding mini-biographies of many of the key Polish poster artists to the DVD booklet, which inevitably meant delving into their work myself - and they’re right: the range and quality is quite extraordinary. There are lots of examples available online - confusingly, two separate sites go by the names polishposter.com and polish-poster.com, each with loads of illustrations.

Here are a few direct links to work by some of the key designers to get you started (firstname and surname send you to different sites):

• Roman Cieslewicz
• Jan Lenica
• Jan Mlodozeniec
• Andrzej Pagowski
• Franciszek Starowieyski
• Waldemar Swierzy
• Henryk Tomaszewski

…but that’s just scratching the surface. Neither site highlights Walerian Borowczyk’s work as a poster designer , but Polishposter.com has a couple of examples.

This (downloadable Word document) hints at some very exciting news. Apparently the Polish government-backed PWA (Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne, or Polish Audiovisual Publishers), which has already released some highly acclaimed DVD surveys of classic Polish documentaries, is turning its curatorial attentions to Poland’s rich animation heritage, though I can’t find any formal announcements on its own site as yet.

But this is what appears to be included:

DISC ONE (118 mins 40 secs)

• House (Dom, Walerian Borowczyk/Jan Lenica, 1958, 10:55)
• Changing of the Guard (Zmiana warty, Włodzimierz Haupe/Halina Bielińska, 1958, 8:06)
• The School (Szkoła, Walerian Borowczyk, 1958, 7:42)
• Labyrinth (Labirynt, Jan Lenica, 1961, 15:30)
• Playthings (Igraszki, Kazimierz Urbański, 1962, 7:22)
• The Armchair (Fotel, Daniel Szczechura, 1963, 6:15)
• Red and Black (Czerwone i czarne, Witold Giersz, 1963, 6:58)
• Cages (Klatki, Mirosław Kijowicz, 1966, 8:06)
• Everything is a Number (Wszystko jest liczbą, Stefan Schabenbeck, 7:30)
• The Horse (Koń, Witold Giersz, 1967, 6:38)
• Stairs (Schody, Stefan Schabenbeck, 1968, 7:18)
• Journey (Podróż, Daniel Szczechura, 1970, 6:22)
• The Son (Syn, Ryszard Czekała, 1970, 10:08)
• Road (Droga, Mirosław Kijowicz, 1971, 4:35)
• The Roll-Call (Apel, Ryszard Czekała, 1970, 7:55)

DISC TWO (94 mins 54 secs)

• Banquet (Bankiet, Zofia Oraczewska, 1976, 8:55)
• Soup (Zupa, Zbigniew Rybczyński, 1974, 8:22)
• Reflections (Refleksy, Jerzy Kucia, 1979, 6:20)
• A Sharp, Engaged Movie (Ostry film zaangażowany, Julian Antonisz, 1979, 8:03)
• Tango (Zbigniew Rybczyński, 1980, 8:10)
• Unfaithful Portrait (Portret niewierny, Ewa Bibańska, 1981, 8:00)
• Little Black Riding Hood (Czarny Kapturek, Piotr Dumała, 1983, 5:16)
• Gentle Spirit (Łagodna, Piotr Dumała, 1985, 11:33)
• Solo on the Follow (Solo na ugorze, Jerzy Kalina, 7:15)
• Race (Wyścig, Marek Serafiński, 1989, 7:20)
• Tuning the Instruments (Strojenie instrumentów, Jerzy Kucia, 2000, 16:20)

If I find out any more, I’ll post it here a.s.a.p. - but they’ve definitely sold at least one copy. Even if it doesn’t have English subtitles, I suspect this won’t be a major handicap - of the half-dozen titles I’ve seen, none has any spoken dialogue.

(The links, incidentally, are to entries on the Polish-language but attractively illustrated 55 lat polskiej animacji site, which at least gives a passing idea of what some of the films are like.)

One of the occupational hazards of studying central and eastern European cinema is actually getting to see many of the films in the first place - especially when moving off the beaten track and exploring short and animated films. Things have significantly improved thanks to the DVD revolution, but rights and materials availability and distributors’ prejudices mean that while certain major figures (Jan Švankmajer, Yuri Norstein) have been very well catered for, others remain almost invisible.

Walerian Borowczyk doesn’t exactly fall into this category, as most of his features are now available on DVD (though not yet Blanche or Docteur Jekyll et les femmes, two of my favourites) - but these almost entirely represent the second half of his career, when he turned his wayward talent to a number of films running the gamut from stylish erotica to outright porn. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (I defended the later films in my Sight & Sound obituary in the April 2006 issue), but Borowczyk’s reputation as a major artist almost entirely comes from the pre-1973 films. And aside from his first live-action feature Goto, Isle of Love (Goto, l’île d’amour), these still remain frustratingly inaccessible - especially the animated work, which is the primary reason why filmmakers like the Quay Brothers revere him to this day.

That said, a handful of the animated shorts have popped up on assorted French and Italian DVDs - I’ve now amassed eight in all, though it meant buying two additional copies of The Beast (La Bête) to go alongside my UK edition, creating the impression that I’m some kind of depraved bestialist to anyone misguided enough to have a rummage through my shelves without an advance warning. These are the various supporting shorts on the French and Italian editions:

• La Bête (Arte, France) has Les Astronautes (1960), Renaissance (1963), Les Jeux des anges (1964), Rosalie (1966), Une Collection particulière (1973, shorter version) and Scherzo infernal (1984) - there are no subtitles on any of these, but only the last three need them.
• Cofanetto Walerian Borowczyk (Columbia TriStar, Italy) has, in addition to the features Goto, Immoral Tales (Contes immoraux) and The Beast (all in French with Italian subtitles, or dubbed Italian), Les Astronautes, Une Collection particulière (1973, shorter version), Escargot de Venus (1975), L’Amour monstre de tous les temps (1977) and Scherzo Infernal (1984), all in French with Italian subtitles.

But those who don’t want to go to such lengths and who have a fast enough broadband connection can sample five shorts here and now, courtesy of UbuWeb, which has uploaded complete videos of Dom (1958), Les Astronautes, Une Collection particulière, Escargot de Venus and L’Amour monstre de tous les temps. The last three are in unsubtitled French, the first two have no spoken content. The quality is, as you’d expect, somewhat ropey (and clearly copyright-infringing, for all the site’s elaborate disclaimers), but better copies of all but Dom are available on the DVDs mentioned above.

Here’s an introduction to Walerian Borowczyk: The Orchestrating Angel, an exhibition of his work at Annecy, and a piece on Culture.pl by Jan Strekowski (April 2004, updated February 2006), which has the most comprehensive annotated filmography that I’ve come across to date.