home to the
brave
by Douglas Messerli
Jerzy Stefan Stawiński (screenplay),
Andrzej Munk (director) Eroica (Heroism) / 1958
Last Tuesday I caught the last
presentation of the Martin Scorsese-curated “Masterpieces of Polish Cinema” at
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater, Andrzej Munk’s two-part
World War II-based work, Eroica (Heroism). Originally filmed as a three-part
work, the last, “The Nun” (subtitled “Con bravura”), was cut from the final
work, in part because it simply seemed “less important” than the other two
sections.
Both consider the issue of how we, or, more particularly, the Poles
might describe heroism. As the flier to the film asks: “Why was the subject so
sensitive and painful [to Poles]?”
First take into consideration
the particular history of Poland, its many
defenses against invasions,
the loss of its statehood for 150 years during
a period marked by numerous
patriotic insurrections, the retrieval of
its independence. Next, factor
in the defeat it suffered in 1939, only to
be followed by renewed
resistance and struggle. Consider that national-
ism, patriotism, and heroic
suffering played roles in all these epochs. Then
remember the valiant struggle
of the Home Army, the largest resistance
group, was presented falsely,
libeled, and those who took part in that
were even victimized during
the Stalinist period, and it is no wonder that
many people waited for some
satisfaction to their sensibilities, waited for
compensation, as it were. Some
justice came finally. Politicians made
gestures of appreciation,
mostly reluctantly, more to bring reconciliation
than to give credit. (Bolesław
Michałek and Frank Turaj)
In short, hated as they were by both the Germans and their would-be
liberators, the Polish people, even while fighting for their survival,
necessarily perceived their actions with a large dose of irony. Heroism,
although a romantically-longed for achievement, was understandably met with
skepticism and even doubt.
The comedy of “Scherzo Alla
Pollacca” derives from the military service of Dzidziuś (Edward Dziewoński)
during the Warsaw uprising. While his platoon practices its formations, a plane
circles. Pointing it out to the commander, the recruit is told to keep
marching, only to insist upon its existence once more as it circles in for the
attack. By seconds, the recruits fall out, scurrying off, with Dzidziuś facing
gunfire from all directions before he, entering a Polish-held cave, discovers a
man racing a bicycle in order to generate electricity. The whole event so
disorients the recruit that he throws down his gun and returns home through the
dangerous landscape of battle.
Once back home, he discovers his wife, Zosia (Barbara Polomska) in the
process of embracing a Hungarian officer (Leon Niemczyk) who has been billeted
within their home. While recognizing the sexual betrayal of his wife, he
nonetheless toasts the interloper in an attempt to get him drunk. Instead, as
they walk back to the Hungarian’s base, the would-be enemy (early in the War
the Hungarians had joined the Axis powers) confides that his battalion would
like to join the Polish forces (Hungary secretly signed a peace agreement with
the US in 1944).
Although he wants no part in the battle, Dzidziuś cannot but report this
fact to the local authorities fighting nearby. The local officer demands that
they take this information to the Home Army Commander in Warsaw, which, with
the local officer, Dzidziuś undertakes, despite being stopped along the way
several times by Nazi officers.
Forced to take the message back to the locals, he first becomes drunk,
weaving through the battlefields on his way home with a terrible headache. The
voyage and his survival, in fact, might remind one a bit of the peregrinations
of Buster Keaton, as he almost accidentally survives, reporting back to the
local headquarters and the Hungarians that the Home Office has denied their
offer. Throughout, Dzidziuś keeps demanding he that receive “credit” for his
actions, awarded instead by disdain and disbelief for his acts.
Returning home, Dzidziuś again is met by the local officer who is headed
back to the front to fight. As a wartime deserter, the recruit seems determined
to return to his unfaithful wife, but encountering her, turns back to join the
officer on his new adventure.
If the first half of the film is basically a comic presentation of
“heroism,” the second—although displaying comic moments—is basically tragic. In
“Ostinato Lugubre” two recently captured Polish officers are introduced in a
POW barracks where most of the officers have been imprisoned for several years,
having lost nearly all sense of morale, some of them such as Zak (Józef
Kostecki) having become almost insane. The only thing that seeming keeps him
alive is that his best friend, Lt. Zawistowski, has apparently been able to
escape from the prison, standing for all of the prisoners as symbol of heroic
possibility.
Some of the detained officers remain devoted to military protocol,
ostracizing men like Zak who reject their ridiculous rules and punishments—Zak,
for example, is divvied out less food than the others—until he finally grows so
tired of the posturing of his fellow prisoners that he walks through the bales
of barbed wire which serves as the camp retainer. Two women, however, quickly,
gather him up and bring him back to the prison gates. Unable to bear the
company of those around him, Zak retreats into a small cubicle made from a
container sent through the Geneva Convention to the prisoners.
One might be tempted to compare this short film to Billy Wilder’s Nazi
prison tale, Stalag 17, except that
Munk and his writer, Jerzy Stefan Strawiński have drained almost any humor from
their tale and have refused to portray the imprisoners as buffoons. In fact, we
hardly see the Nazis, since the prisoners suffer more from the pettiness and
posturing of their peers than the brutality of the Germans. Although, as in the
Wilder film, one prisoner receives a large store of rations, rather than
selling them as Sargeant Sefton might, he greedily attempts to eat them all at
one sitting, becoming sick in the process.
One of the new detainees, Kurzawa (Józef Nowak), however, accidently
uncovers a completely other dimension of barrack life as, seeking a glass a
water in the middle of the night, he discovers another suffering officer, Lt.
Turek (Kazimiez Rudzki) removing a tile from the ceiling, whereupon he realizes
that the “heroic” Zawistowski has not really escaped, but is hiding in heating
and cooling ducts. Keeping the secret, Kurzawa begins to minister to the dying
Zawistowski, providing him with sleeping pills and medicine for his cough.
After the nearly unbearable torture of watching the greedy officer
stuffing his stomach as the others spur him on, Zak, weary of life, opens the
door to the barracks and enters the courtyard alone in prohibition of camp
rules. The slowly shot scene of his death by gunfire is nearly unbearable to
watch.
Zawistowski, Kurzawa reports, has also just died, and Turek, to whom the
camp commander owes a favor, arranges for the duct to be shipped out, the
non-existent hero embedded within. Who is the true hero Munk’s profound film
seems to ask, the would-be honorable Zawistowski, the weary suicidal Zak, or
keeper of the secret Turek? Kurzawa, the complicit observer—like the audience
itself—is left to make his own choice.
Los Angeles, June 26, 2014
Reprinted from International Cinema Review (June 2014).
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