In 1961, Stanislaw Rozewicz created the novella film "Birth Certificate" in cooperation with his brother, Taduesz Rozewicz as screenwriter. Such brother tandems are rare in the history of film but aside from family ties, Stanislaw (born in 1924) and Taduesz (born in 1921) were mutually bound by their love for the cinema. They were born and grew up in Radomsk, a small town which had "its madmen and its saints" and most importanly, the "Kinema" cinema, as Stanislaw recalls: for him cinema is "heaven, the whole world, enchantment". Tadeusz says he considers cinema both a charming market stall and a mysterious temple. "All this savage land has always attracted and fascinated me," he says. "I am devoured by cinema and I devour cinema; I'm a cinema eater." But Taduesz Rozewicz, an eminent writer, admits this unique form of cooperation was a problem to him: "It is the presence of the other person not only in the process of writing, but at its very core, which is inserperable for me from absolute solitude." Some scenes the brothers wrote together; others were created by the writer himself, following discussions with the director. But from the perspective of time, it is "Birth Certificate", rather than "Echo" or "The Wicked Gate", that Taduesz describes as his most intimate film. This is understandable. The tradgey from September 1939 in Poland was for the Rozewicz brothers their personal "birth certificate". When working on the film, the director said "This time it is all about shaking off, getting rid of the psychological burden which the war was for all of us. ... Cooperation with my brother was in this case easier, as we share many war memories. We wanted to show to adult viewers a picture of war as seen by a child. ... In reality, it is the adults who created the real world of massacres. Children beheld the horrors coming back to life, exhumed from underneath the ground, overwhelming the earth."
The principle of composition of "Birth Certificate" is not obvious. When watching a novella film, we tend to think in terms of traditional theatre. We expect that a miniature story will finish with a sharp point; the three film novellas in Rozewicz's work lack this feature. We do not know what will be happen to the boy making his alone through the forest towards the end of "On the Road". We do not know whether in "Letter from the Camp", the help offered by the small heroes to a Soviet prisoner will rescue him from the unknown fate of his compatriots. The fate of the Jewish girl from "Drop of Blood" is also unclear. Will she keep her new impersonation as "Marysia Malinowska"? Or will the Nazis make her into a representative of the "Nordic race"? Those questions were asked by the director for a reason. He preceived war as chaos and perdition, and not as linear history that could be reflected in a plot. Although "Birth Certificate" is saturated with moral content, it does not aim to be a morality play. But with the immense pressure of reality, no varient of fate should be excluded. This approached can be compared wth Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blind Chance" 25 years later, which pictured dramatic choices of a different era.
The film novella "On the Road" has a very sparing plot, but it drew special attention of the reviewers. The ominating overtone of the war films created by the Polish Film School at that time should be kept in mind. Mainly owing to Wajda, those films dealt with romantic heritage. They were permeated with pathos, bitterness, and irony. Rozewicz is an extraordinary artist. When narrating a story about a boy lost in a war zone, carrying some documents from the regiment office as if they were a treasure, the narrator in "On the Road" discovers rough prose where one should find poetry. And suddenly, the irrational touches this rather tame world. The boy, who until that moment resembled a Polish version of the Good Soldier Schweik, sets off, like Don Quixote, for his first and last battle. A critic described it as "an absurd gesture and someone else could surely use it to criticise the Polish style of dying. ... But the Rozewicz brothers do no accuse: they only compose an elegy for the picturesque peasant-soldier, probably the most important veteran of the Polish war of 1939-1945." "Birth Certificate" is not a lofty statement about national imponderabilia. The film reveals a plebeian perspective which Aleksander Jackieqicz once contrasted with those "lyrical lamentations" inherent in the Kordian tradition. However, a historical overview of Rozewicz's work shows that the distinctive style does not signify a fundamental difference in illustrating the Polish September. Just as the memorable scene from Wajda's "Lotna" was in fact an expression of desperation and distress, the same emotions permeate the final scene of "Birth Certificate". These are not ideological concepts, though once described as such and fervently debated, but rather psychological creations. In this specific case, observes Witold Zalewski, it is not about manifesting knightly pride, but about a gesture of a simple man who does not agree to be enslaved.
The novella "Drop of Blood" is, with Aleksander Ford's "Border Street", one of the first narrations of the fate of the Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. The story about a girl literally looking for her place on earth has a dramatic dimension. Especially in the age of today's journalistic disputes, often manipulative, lacking in empathy and imbued with bad will, Rozewicz's story from the past shocks with its authenticity. The small herione of the story is the only one who survives a German raid on her family home. Physical survial does not, however, mean a return to normality. Her frightened departure from the rubbish dump that was her hideout lead her to a ruined apartment. Her walk around it is painful because still fresh signs of life are mixed with evidence of annihilation. Help is needed, but Mirka does not know anyone in the outside world. Her subsequent attempts express the state of the fugitive's spirits - from hope and faith, moving to doubt, a sense of oppression, and thickening fear, and finally to despair.
At the same time, the Jewish girl's search for refuge resembles the state of Polish society. The appearance of Mirka results in confusion, and later, trouble. This was already signalled by Rozewicz in an exceptional scene from "Letter from the Camp" in which the boy's neighbour, seeing a fugitive Russian soldier, retreats immediately, admitting that "Now, people worry only about themselves." Such embarassing excuses mask fear. During the occupation, no one feels safe. Neither social status not the aegis of a charity organisation protects against repression. We see the potential guardians of Mirka passing her back and forth among themselves. These are friendly hands but they cannot offer strong support. The story takes place on that thin line between solidarity and heroism. Solidarity arises spontaneously, but only some are capable of heroism. Help for the girl does not always result from compassion; sometimes it is based on past relations and personal ties (a neighbour of the doctor takes in the fugitive for a few days because of past friendship). Rozewicz portrays all of this in a subtle way; even the smallest gesture has significance. Take, for example, the conversation with a stranger on the train: short, as if jotted down on the margin, but so full of tension. And earlier, a peculiar examination of Polishness: the "Holy Father" prayer forced on Mirka by the village boys to check that she is not a Jew. Would not rising to the challenge mean a death sentance?
Viewed after many years, "Birth Certificate" discloses yet another quality that is not present in the works of the Polish School, but is prominent in later B-class war films. This is the picture of everyday life during the war and occupation outlined in the three novellas. It harmonises with the logic of speaking about "life after life". Small heroes of Rozewicz suddenly enter the reality of war, with no experience or scale with which to compare it. For them, the present is a natural extension of and at the same time a complete negation of the past. Consider the sleey small-town marketplace, through which armoured columns will shortly pass. Or meet the German motorcyclists, who look like aliens from outer space - a picture taken from an autopsy because this is how Stanislaw and Taduesz perceived the first Germans they ever met. Note the blurred silhouettes of people against a white wall who are being shot - at first they are shocking, but soon they will probably become a part of the grim landscape. In the city centre stands a prisoner camp on a sodden bog ("People perish likes flies; the bodies are transported during the night"); in the street the childern are running after a coal wagon to collect some precious pieces of fuel. There's a bustle around some food (a boy reproaches his younger brother's actions by singing: "The warrant officer's son is begging in front of the church? I'm going to tell mother!"); and the kitchen, which one evening becomes the proscenium of a real drama. And there are the symbols: a bar of chocolate forced upon a boy by a Wehrmacht soldier ("On the Road"); a pair of shoes belonging to Zbyszek's father which the boy spontaneously gives to a Russian fugitive; a priceless slice of bread, ground under the heel of a policeman in the guter ("Letters from the Camp"). As the director put it: "In every film, I communicate my own vision of the world and of the people. Only then the style follows, the defined way of experiencing things." In Birth Certificate, he adds, his approach was driven by the subject: "I attempted to create not only the texture of the document but also to add some poetic element. I know it is risky but as for the merger of documentation and poety, often hidden very deep, if only it manages to make its way onto the screen, it results in what can referred to as 'art'."
After 1945, there were numerous films created in Europe that dealt with war and children, including "Somewhere in Europe" ("Valahol Europaban", 1947 by Geza Radvanyi), "Shoeshine" ("Sciescia", 1946 by Vittorio de Sica), and "Childhood of Ivan" ("Iwanowo dietstwo" by Andriej Tarkowski). Yet there were fewer than one would expect. Pursuing a subject so imbued with sentimentalism requires stylistic disipline and a special ability to manage child actors. The author of "Birth Certificate" mastered both - and it was not by chance. Stanislaw Rozewicz was always the beneficent spirit of the film milieu; he could unite people around a common goal. He emanated peace and sensitivity, which flowed to his co-workers and pupils. A film, being a group work, necessitates some form of empathy - tuning in with others.
In a biographical documentary about Stanislaw Rozewicz entitled "Walking, Meeting" (1999 by Antoni Krauze), there is a beautiful scene when the director, after a few decades, meets Beata Barszczewska, who plays Mireczka in the novella "Drops of Blood". The woman falls into the arms of the elderly man. They are both moved. He wonders how many years have passed. She answers: "A few years. Not too many." And Rozewicz, with his characteristic smile says: "It is true. We spent this entire time together."
很纯粹的一部电影，几乎集中在视觉的平静和音效的震动上。慢慢的探索，一束一束的火光，像云一样移动的牧群，还有与洞穴一样满脸皱纹的老人在呼吸。最终当洞穴学家示意停止后，我一度以为还会有反转，但没有。老人被裹上毯子，绘图员在雾中给草稿画上最后几笔，电影结束。（ps 看完本人地质学家的梦又复燃了）
题材本身还是挺值得鼓励。片子做得过于用力了，音乐和节奏都是。没错这样的片子是有被打动的预期的，但是一直催着说你要感动你要感动就会有点奇怪和pushy。打算把12秒58拿出来也看看
很无聊的互文，一定要大屏幕，但大屏幕也不会让你爽到
20210929 11thBJIFF@合生汇寰映 声光杰作。对于这样一部影片的欣赏是需要一些耐心的，我很感动的是看到很多观众等到影片滚屏放完才离开座位，那一刻感觉爱电影的人真可爱。
戛然而止。我在想，拍一个勘察墓葬的不错啊。 @2021-09-21 22:37:43
根据残奥4届残奥会、获得6块奥运金牌的香港 “神奇小子” 苏桦伟的真实故事改编。东京残奥会举办时间是2021年8月24日至9月5日，这部电影在这个时候上映，电影的意义当然也就远远大于电影的技巧。看预告片的时候 就做好了要哭的准备。尚在襁褓中就因为黄疸而导致脑痉挛的苏桦伟落下了残疾，注定要过上和平常人不一样的人生，但正是这个不被看好的残疾男孩，却在妈妈的鼓励下参加了残联的田径队，并且连续四届替香港出战夺金，目前依然是男子100米和200米跑T36级残疾人世界纪录的保持者。他是苏炳添的 “苏神”、也是中国人的阿甘。电影的最后，苏桦伟在北京奥运会上连失两金、痛哭落泪，吴君如饰演的苏妈安慰他：「用力哭，不如用力跑。妈妈会在终点望着你。」温情柔和又不失热血，真的太好哭。
这是一部和自然紧密联系的电影，如果有这样的草地和蓝天，我愿意躺在上面睡上一天的大懒觉，任凭洞内的探险家们探索，睡醒以后我会给予他们热烈而真诚的掌声。
好美好舒服，自从本届看了十诫巴赫曼引见之后，壁纸电影轻而易举！
黑暗给人的就是未知的未知，声音和镜头搭配很妙，杀猪声与教堂，老爷子放牧声与山雾。不过这个片只适合大荧幕看
这是一部和自然紧密联系的电影，如果有这样的草地和蓝天，我愿意躺在上面睡上一天的大懒觉，任凭洞内的探险家们探索，睡醒以后我会给予他们热烈而真诚的掌声。
嗚嗚，太喜歡了，洞穴裡的水滴聲就是我的靈魂音樂。with菠菜在ff。
北影最后一场：于是人生就在此开展画卷，从升起至向下，到达某个深处，工整且诗意。它随风散去，沉默着。
积极正能量的体育传记片。剪辑使叙事节奏行云流水，还义正言辞地抛出残奥与奥运获奖运动员待遇不对等问题；
我坐在第一排，以仰视的姿态尝试读出点什么，仔细捕捉着所有的声音。我不知道自己看懂没有，又或许这部电影，本身就没有标准答案。
2.5颗星。拒绝阅读，而是纯粹地观看与体验，但我却未获得精神愉悦。【BJIFF-7】
中秋节于深影。
北影节最差体验寰映合生汇场留念
不需要言语，只需要视听语言，是美学的极致，也是人类突破自我的尝试
"你天生残废没人会怪你，只会怪我。"
不是「媽媽的神奇小子」，也不是「神奇小子的媽媽」，而是「小子的神奇媽媽」，孩子的意願並不重要，爸爸依舊總是缺席，媽媽做錯了也是一切為了孩子好，近乎綁架的「世上只有媽媽好」，透露著一股強烈的「沒有XXX就沒有XXX」的單向因果，孩子的自身努力被抹殺，其他人的犧牲與幫助也被無視，真實的故事也許並不如此，只是電影本身實在令人失望。
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