The Faithful River: 1987 movie, Poland (Wierna rzeka)

Continuing with my erratic movie posts for this year...
For more foreign movies, check out Caroline's World Cinema Series 2012 and Richard's monthly Foreign Film Festival round-up.

Another post about a film adaptation of a recent book I’ve read... The IMDb.com page for Wierna rzeka provides the summary:

Set during the insurgency of 1863, the story focuses on a tragic romance between a poor gentlewoman and a rebel noble. After a bloody battle a unit of insurgents have been wiped out and only one survived, but badly wounded. He eventually finds shelter and care from a landsteward's daughter, hiding in a burned-out manor with an old servant.

The VHS box provides a description that includes the broader story: “The adaptation of the well-known novel by Stefan Żeromski. The picture shows in impressive way the tragedy of the Polish January 1863 uprising and heroism of the young people: struggle, love and death.”

As I hope I made clear in my post on the novel, The Faithful River can be both beautiful and saccharine. Czeslaw Milosz, in my post on Stefan Żeromski, captures this duality when he praises his “stupendous richness” while at the same time pointing out the “kitsch and melodrama” in his work. The movie follows the novel closely, softening the kitsch and melodrama only a little. I don’t see how you could do away with them and stay true to the themes of the book.

Director Tadeusz Chmielewski chose to stress many of the same themes Żeromski develops, although sometimes in different ways. The novel focuses on the civilian cost of the uprising, many times through a character’s inner voice. Since that isn’t as easily (or effectively) available in a movie, Chmielewski increases the focus on the Russian army. Through this tactic we hear their comments on the Polish people—their love of freedom and tenacity in resistance. It also softens the harsh judgment on the pliant peasants who aided the Russians since the costs in not helping are explicitly shown.

I found the haunting of the mansion by Uncle Dominik’s ghost more effective in the movie. The role of the ghost emphasizes the “haunting” of the new by the old. The modern, shown especially in the uprising and the classless household, suffers when old ways of thinking surface. One example: for most of the movie Salomea treats the cook Szczepan as an equal, but things begin to fall apart when she reverts to regarding him as an inferior. While there are several changes from the novel, one alteration stood out by amplifying some of the themes. Salomea has borrowed (temporarily stolen) a sleigh to retrieve a doctor from town to help the suffering Odrowąż. The doctor, knowing Salomea has no money to pay for his visit, says he will set his own fee (insert leer here). In the novel Salomea fights off the doctor’s advances on the return trip. In the movie, she makes it clear she will sacrifice herself in return for the doctor performing surgery on Odrowąż. She does so, though, in a manner that shames the doctor, ending his lascivious advances.

In other places the ambivalence of the novel carries over to the movie, too. The Polish soldiers are just as harmful to the manor as the Russians. The same question arises—is the suffering worth it? As I noted in the post on the novel, there is a martyrdom theme that runs throughout--do Odrowąż’s or Salomea’s sacrifices or rejections improve things in any way? This is something I want to address again in the movie version of Ashes and Diamonds since this feeling is even more pronounced in it (and the novel).

The only real complaint about the movie is its length of 137 minutes—some of the early scenes, especially those emphasizing Odrowąż’s pain, could have been cut or reduced. But then I felt the same way about the book. The novel should be a good predictor for this movie. If you like the book you’ll love the movie and if you didn’t like the book you won’t care for the movie. Or if you’re like me, who enjoyed and hated the book at different times, you’ll have both feelings for the movie. A well done adaptation.

I want to put in a good word for POLart Video, the distributor of this movie and The Doll (Lalka). The quality of the print hasn’t always been the best (although some of that may have to do with the age of the VHS tapes I watched), and I’ve noted some issues with the subtitles. Even with these drawbacks I appreciate what they’ve done since they may be the only distributor for English translations of some of these movies.

The Faithful River by Stefan Żeromski

The Faithful River by Stefan Żeromski
Translated by Bill Johnston
Northwestern University Press, 179 pages
ISBN: 978-0810115965

The Faithful River is set in the Kielce region of central Poland in the winter and spring of 1863, during the January Uprising. At this time the country of Poland did not exist; since the partitions of the late eighteenth century its territory had been carved up by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. In January 1863 a second armed insurrection (after the November Uprising of 1830-31) broke out in the Russian-occupied part of the country, with much of the fighting concentrated in the region where the novel is set. The Poles scored some notable victories but were ultimately crushed by the might of the Russian forces. The uprising finally collapsed in the fall of 1864. It was to be the last organized revolt against any of the occupying powers until World War I, which broke out two years after the publications of this novel.
(from the Translator’s Introduction, ix-x)

The Battle of Małogoszcz (February 24, 1863) precedes the narrative of the novel. Józef Odrowąż ,the lone surviving (and badly wounded) Polish soldier from his squadron, staggers from the battlefield to a nearby manor. Salomea Brynicka, a young woman looking after the manor for her guardians, and Szczepan Podkurek, the manor cook, take Odrowąż in and care for him. They tend his wounds and protect him from Russian troops and marauding Polish soldiers. Żeromski explores the meaning and impact of the war through the life of these civilians. Everything that Czeslaw Milosz noted about Stefan Żeromski in this post, good and bad, is on display in The Faithful River.

Odrowąż never asks Salomea why she exerts such effort to nurse him when the risks are so great but her reply to another question, about her father joining the Polish rebel cause, resonates throughout the novel:

"[T]he first duty of a Pole is to his fatherland, and only then to his family." She uttered this wise and conventional popular dictum with hieratic solemnity.
(page 33)

Impossibility and hopelessness make no difference. There is a martyrdom theme, especially in relation to freedom, which runs throughout the novel. (I’m seeing this in several Polish novels I'm currently reading and will note it again.) Żeromski doesn’t make things straightforward when it comes to causes or motivations, though. The Polish townspeople treat Odrowąż as if he were the enemy, fearing reprisal from the Russians if he is discovered. Their pathetic attempts at arresting him, along with their lack of help to find an important bag in the nearby river, paints them as pitiable instead of contemptible. The leaderless marauding Polish soldiers treat Salomea and Szczepan just as bad or worse than the Russian troops. The Russian commanders demonstrate courtesy amid their confrontations with Salomea during their efforts to find Odrowąż. Nothing is clear cut and there are no easy answers.

Żeromski includes plenty of symbolism in the novel, not the least of which is the River Łośna of the title. Running near the manor, the river provides the setting for sevearl key points in the novel. It washes the wounds of the injured Odrowąż, hides the important bag of papers thrown by a fleeing Polish insurgant, and receives the gift Salomea flings away in disgust. There is much more symbolism, some powerful, some cheesy. When Żeromski is good the scenes are quite moving, such as when Salomea provides one of several demands in the novel to provide meaning to the sacrifice required.

"Which of you will dare to say that he’ll defeat those who come here in the night to torment innocent people like us? And if you can’t defeat them, which of you dared to unleash the savagery that they brought here in their souls from the cruel snows? Do you have in yourselves a strength that is equal to their savagery and is capable of crushing that evil?"

Olbromski [a leading figure in the uprising] was silent. She gave a sob and went on with her accusations: "The Russian soldiers burn down manor houses and kill the wounded on the battlefields. The farmers tie up the insurgents—"

He interrupted her in a different, hard voice: "You prefer their savagery to wounds and death? That savagery will reign over you for all time!"

"It already does, in spite of all the wounds."

"The Polish tribe has found itself between millstones of destruction: the Germans and Moscow. It must either become a millstone itself or be ground up as fodder for the other two. There is no other choice. Any further discussion is superfluous."

"What can we believe in? What can we live by?"

(pages 100-101)

There are many moments, though, that are almost too painful to read, such as the labored symbolism in a “slim birch sapling, which was soon to become a tree yet was still frail and thin.” Or the melodrama in this scene:

In those few days Salomea and Józef Odrowąż’s mother grew so close together that they became as one person. They communicated with each other by thoughts; above all, the feelings of each were an open book for the other. What for anyone else was only a word, a name, was for them the entire world. One understood the other’s emotions, could recognize them when they were merely referred to, could see them for what they were, and could move about them as if they were a land in another world, filled with hills, flower-covered valleys, cliffs, and deathly ravines. While the injured man slept, they sat in each other’s arms and recounted their impressions and their memories. A thousand times over Salomea divulged all the vicissitudes of the young man’s stay at the manor, all the stages of his sufferings, the mishaps, sorrows, and joys. For the mother it was all so fascinating and perpetually of interest that Salomea had to repeat it over and again.

They were incapable of talking about anything else. Their world existed only in the room where the young man lay. The more his life hung by a thread, the deeper, more ecstatic, and the closer to madness these two women’s love for each other became. With a single squeeze of the hand they conveyed more than could be expressed in a long conversation. With one look they told each other everything. When the sick man coughed or groaned, they ran like two wings of the same angel to tend to him, to mop his brow, and to comfort him—one openly, the other in secret, one with words and a tender touch, the other only with a look, a hand stretched out toward him, and a prayer.
(page 156)

In the novel Żeromski seems to run through a litany of things that must change, such as the importance Polish society places on nobility, while demonstrating the costs and burdens that must be borne in order to realize Polish autonomy. To put it in the context of the novel, Żeromski joins in with his characters to ask what they are fighting for. The final scenes prove to be moving and melodramatic, highlighting some of the costs involved the dream of autonomy. All in all, an interesting read. Since the novel is extremely emotional in its approach, good and bad sections are amplified—when good, Żeromski is very good. When bad…well, just read the above for one of many examples.

I plan to post on the 1980s Polish movie based on this novel (Wierna rzeka) soon. Update: the post on the movie can be found here.

An essay on the Polish national anthem (Dąbrowski's Mazurka) can be found here and may lend some insight to the emotions Żeromski targets. The English translation:

1. Poland is not yet lost
while we live
We will fight (with swords) for all/
That our enemies had taken from us.

     Refrain:
     March, march Dabrowski
     from Italy to Poland
     Under your command
     we will reunite with the nation.

2. We will cross the Vistula and Warta Rivers,/
we will be Poles,/ Bonaparte showed us/ how to win.

      Refrain: March, march...

3. Like Czarniecki to Poznan, after Swedish annexation,
We will come back across the sea to save our motherland

     Refrain: March, march...

4. Father, in tears, says to his Basia: "Just listen,
It seems that our people are beating the drums."

     Refrain: March, march...

Stefan Żeromski (1864 – 1925)

Since I will be reading several of Stefan Żeromski’s books this year (The Faithful River, Ashes, and The Coming Spring), I thought an introduction to the author was appropriate. The article at Culture.pl serves as a good overview since it goes into great detail about his life and works. In addition, I’ll provide a few quotes from other sources that will help introduce Żeromski.

From The History of Polish Literature by Czeslaw Milosz:

Called "the conscience of Polish literature," Stefan Żeromski was born in central Poland near the town of Kielce, the son of an impoverished nobleman. His native region at the foot of the Holy Cross mountain chain had been a battleground during the 1863 insurrection, and this theme was to receive a new treatment under Żeromski’s pen. His biography exemplifies the fate of those country gentry who migrated to the cities, as well as all the transformations undergone by the progressive intelligentsia in its political attitudes. Żeromski studied veterinary medicine in Warsaw, worked as a private tutor, and endured much financial misery while writing his first stories. For a while, he was a librarian at the Polish museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland—an occupation which proved to be fruitful for his creative work, for he was to make use of his research, later on, in his historical novels. From 1904 on, once he had achieved public recognition, he was able to dedicate all his time to literature. In his early stories, both short and long, Żeromski was a good pupil of the Positivists, applying a realistic style that leaned somewhat toward naturalistic brutality. Yet he was a Neo-Romantic in spirit. His obsession both with social injustice and with the armed struggles of the past carried revolutionary innuendos.

…

During the first quarter of the [twentieth] century, nobody, not even his enemies, questioned Żeromski’s position as the most important Polish fiction writer. He was called ‘an insatiable heart,’ ‘the conscience of Polish literature,’ and the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Remont for his ‘Peasants’ provoked some indignation among the Poles. It was felt Żeromski should have received it. His extraordinary gift for compassion, his open-mindedness, and the dramatic plots of his books account for that worship. Today, there is a tendency to regard the stories of his early period as better constructed artistic wholes than his novels. In the former, which are closer to the prose of the nineteenth century, he did not indulge in the unrestrained lyricism that later entered his style under the impact of modernism and symbolism; moreover, he merely presented the sad social reality without proposing solutions (in truth, he had never had solutions for the pressing issues of the day). Yet Żeromski was, first of all, a public figure of great stature; this together with his feeling for the unexplored resources of the Polish language—and his vocabulary is of a stupendous richness—secures him a place apart in Polish literature.

In an article for Slavonic and East European Review, American Series, Edmund I. Zawacki said of Żeromski, "His works identify themselves so closely with the struggle of Poland for freedom and for social justice within that freedom that they are a veritable mirror of the historical events, the ideological currents, and the intellectual and emotional attitudes swaying the whole generation of Poles who lived to see their disembodied nation take on the flesh of statehood."

Milosz reinforces the judgment noted in the first quote about the novels of Żeromski while emphasizing the importance of such works in an essay from To Begin Where I Am:

From a courtyard on Wileńska, in its "artisan" section, one entered a lending library to which Grandmother Milosz had a subscription paid for out of her modest pension. I often turned up there, either delegated by her or to borrow books for myself, when I was twelve, thirteen. Mostly Żeromski, Rodziewiczówna, Szpyrkówna, that is to say, bad literature, and it seems to me that a tolerable intelligence in someone who received such training should not be underrated, with a few points added for the obstacles that he must have had to overcome. In all languages, belles lettres are predominantly kitsch and melodrama; however, the accidents of Polish history decreed that fiction had an exceptionally powerful effect on people’s minds, as a language and as a sensibility, so that I suspect there is in the so-called Polish soul an exceptionally rich underpinning of kitsch. As for me—let’s be frank: in the books that I borrowed from the library I was enchanted by such scenes as the death of the beautiful Helen in Ashes, who threw herself into a ravine, and perhaps even more so by the ending of a certain story that was translated from the French about the chouans, or the counter-revolutionaries in the Vendée. The hero’s head is sliced off on the guillotine, but that does not put an end to his highly emotional adventures. To this day I can remember the last sentence: "But his head, still rolling, whispered, ‘Amélie!’ "

I’m not sure the source of the French novel to which Milosz refers but he effectively gets the point across. I'm seeing exactly what he's referring to while reading The Faithful River--beautiful passages with metaphors that are both moving and melodramatic at the same time. It will be fun to explore more...