Afterimage (2016)

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The Polish film Powidoki was released in the United States with the translated title Afterimage (2016). It was directed by the late Andrzej Wajda. (Wadja lived long enough to see the film completed, but he died before it was released.) I think that it's more than a coincidence that Wajda chose as his final film the story of a great artist who died without ever losing his dedication to art. The avant-garde Polish artist Wladyslaw Strzeminski was highly regarded in art circles all over the world. However, when Poland was dominated by the Soviet Union, he was forced out of his teaching post. Ultimately, he could not find work, and his lack of funds caused him to die in poverty from tuberculosis in 1952.This is a hard film to watch. We see Strzeminski forced from his role as professor, forced to separate from his students, and forced out of the artist's guild. He's told that in Communist Poland, only those who work get to eat. The problem is that the government won't let him work, so basically he is sentenced to death, although he was never charged with a crime.Boguslaw Linda portrays Strzeminski, and his acting is superb. He's an experienced Polish actor, who has worked with Wadja before. A movie like this will stand or fall on the merits of the star. Linda makes us believe in the character. We see him continually making choices. He himself sees no choices--he lives for his art and he dies for it.We watched this movie in Rochester's wonderful Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman Museum. It will work well on the small screen. Afterimage was shown at the Grand Opening of part two the outstanding 2017 Rochester Polish Film Festival. Earlier this year, the Dryden screened A Generation. That was Wajda's first film, and this was his last. What an opportunity to follow the development of a talented director from the beginning to the end of his career.

When Director Andrzej Wadja passed away last fall, his career wasn't give the notice his extraordinary career merited. His post-war trilogy (A GENERATION, KANAL and ASHES AND DIAMONDS) is one the finest in World Cinema. Over two decades later his MAN OF MARBLE and MAN OF IRON (contextualizing the rise of the Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement) comprise one of the greatest double features I have ever seen. If he had only made those five films, Wadja's place in the history of European cinema would be secure. But, he made a number of other superb films including DANTON and A LOVE IN Germany.AFTERIMAGE isn't at that level, but, it's a good solid work, and a fitting epitaph to his career. It's a biography of Russian-Polish artist Władysław Strzemiński who struggled during the rise of communism in post-war Poland. It's a fittingly symbolic end for Wadja's filmography, for the Director's first feature (A GENERATION) was made only a couple of years after Strzemiński's death. And, like the artist in AFTERIMAGE, Wadja's own work inspired a 'generation' of Polish Directors to come such as Polanski and Skolominski. In AFTERIMAGE it is explained that the term means the image in one own's eye that remains after one views a work of art. So too, for me, and for other's inspired by Wadja's art, this movie serves as a lasting afterimage of his work.

A person sees only what they are aware of. This is the afterimage. For Wladyslaw Strzeminski, a real-life artist and professor in post- World War II Poland, the knife of awareness cuts both ways. A model communist citizen before it was fashionable to be so, Strzeminski finds himself at odds with indifferent, hollow politicians and struggles to maintain his integrity, after the war. Despite the artist's modest lifestyle, efficiency apartment, the loss of his legs in the war and desire just to paint, teach and take pleasure in such simple things as rolling in a meadow, he is slowly crushed by these unfeeling bureaucrats. He is even banned from buying art supplies. Beloved by his students, Strzeminski encourages their individual forms of expression and urges them to keep the boundary between art and politics.The film scenes are precise and the transitions between them are remarkably fluid, scary good! The acting is exemplary. The actors are cast perfectly, especially the main actor and the young woman who portrays his long-suffering daughter. Such wonders are the marks of a masterful director. Wajda died just after the completion of the film. Wajda was the trusting sort, said a friend of his, just before the film began. Such trust in his crew paid dividends. Seen at the Miami International Film Festival.

13th Dubai International Film Festival, 14 December 2016.The last movie of Andrzej Wajda tells the story of one of the best artists of the 20th Century, Wladyslaw Strzeminski.The movie states that the situation of a true artist is miserable in spite of the geography, language and culture. Wladyslaw Strzeminski is a great painter, and is suffering due to his personal views, during a great social reformation in Poland. He loose his job, artist license canceled, and ignored in every corner of life. Though his students try to support him, it doesn't make much use. Hungry and sick, a great artist faces the tough realities of life.The performance of the cast are amazing. Boguslaw Linda as Strzeminski and all the remaining cast have done a wonderful job. Photography and direction is so superb. I noticed the audience after the movie, they had tears in their eyes. It is so heart touching. Do not miss this movie, if you are a real movie freak!