Ms. Szumowska, in “The Masseur” a mysterious Ukrainian named Zhenia appears in a gated community. He creates confusion with the magical power of his hands. Where did you find this housing estate?
Very close to Warsaw. It surprised me even though it is popular in Poland to live in gated communities. The residents believe they have a right to this type of housing because they work hard. I wasn’t expecting something so crazy that looks like a scene from the “Truman Show”. Our production designer made me aware of this. The houses are all identical, huge and with a garden.
You don’t see a single antique in the old-fashioned houses – is that also a consequence of the Second World War, which devastated Warsaw?
Antiques are missing because they are associated with the old Polish intelligentsia, to which my parents belonged, for example. This layer is disappearing. The new upper middle class in Poland is no longer associated with higher education and intellectuality. Its representatives grew up with aggressive American-style capitalism. You belong to my generation and experienced the decline of communism as young people. Then in the 1990s they made big money. For them, old furniture means the past, but they want to live in the now. My father always asked me: Do you want something or do you want to be something? Of course, I always wanted to be something. But this generation is focused on the material.
Zhenia seems to embody an element of danger, for example he gives away honey from the contaminated Pripyat.
He is a mixture of everything, of black and white, like the satanic magician Voland in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. It symbolizes the longing for something metaphysical, for something strange, something abstract.
Your films are very physical. “Body” is about anorexia, “The Mask” is about the social consequences for a man disfigured by an accident. Is that why the main character is a masseur?
Yes, because he comes very close to people, he touches them. For me, body and soul belong together. But I believe that many want to avoid this connection because there could be something uncomfortable about the relationship between body and mind.
Is the lack of spirituality or security a central issue for you?
Yes absolutely. I grew up in a time when the spiritual was much more present. This is paradoxical because the Church was over-present during communism. She fought with all her might against this regime and contributed decisively to its overthrow. That is why religion was seen as something positive.
Does that have anything to do with your childhood in very catholic Krakow?
People like my father Maciej Szumowski, a well-known journalist, took religion seriously and viewed it philosophically. So it happens that it has always been a part of my life. Then communism collapsed, my parents died, and a lot changed in my life. It wasn’t until I was over thirty that I began to understand that God may not exist. But I still believe that there is something – some call it God, others speak of an energy.
What are the consequences of this loss of spirituality?
People try to replace the lack of spirituality with yoga or Ayurveda. I think both are wonderful, but consider them a misunderstanding. I don’t want to fix or save the world, but at most change the state of mind of those who watch my films. I think it’s also because of the displacement of reading by social media. Reading is great and can open up a spiritual space. If it is replaced by something else, it increases the mental and emotional deficiency.
Has the restriction of the press in Poland exacerbated this tendency? Last Thursday, Parliament passed a controversial media law …
A free ticket to authoritarian society. There is also an independent press and TVN that allows people to see what the government is really doing. State television shows a version of reality as in communism as fake news. So the government wants to shut down TVN and then probably the independent press. We are following the example of Hungary. I find it difficult not to be afraid of Polish films.
Is there enough audience for such subtle social criticism?
My films have a louder voice outside of Poland. Sometimes this difference in perception between home and abroad is radical. “The Mask” was perceived in Poland as an explicit criticism of Polish society. I’m more interested in criticizing the nouveau riche. Often people are offended. I am often seen as an international director. Someone international is not Polish …
Do you feel like Krzysztof Kiedlowski, who shot his late films in France?
Kiedlowski was therefore completely rejected. That has to be because of our mentality, not because of politics. The most drastic political problem that we currently have in Poland is the strict ban on abortion. It puts a lot of women in a dramatic position, and that’s terrible. Maybe we internalized the censorship. We Poles always feel underrated and undervalued because of our history. And when someone like me does something international – Naomi Watts plays in my recently completed film “Infinite Storm” – then my compatriots get suspicious.
In the past, many Poles had to emigrate to Western Europe as guest workers, now the Ukrainians come to Poland as cheap labor, like the main character Zhenia. Does he embody the lost Polish East in today’s Ukraine, which is so often romanticized, for his clientele?
For us, the romantic lies in the Russian language, because Russian is spoken in about half of Ukraine. It reminds us of childhood, of the safe and warm time. On the one hand I hated it, on the other hand I grew up watching Tarkovsky’s films and Dostoyevsky’s novels. Generally speaking, Poles are very open to Ukrainians. And without foreign workers, the economy cannot grow, just like in Germany: the locals no longer want to do certain jobs.
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