Baza ludzi umarlych (1959)

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   monty

   Based on a short story by cult writer Marek Hlasko, The Depot of the Dead by Czeslaw Petelski (1958) was an event from the borderland between the history of cinema and literature. The director and Hlasko wrote the script based on the rebellious writer’s first finished book as the country was beginning to tighten the screws loosened by Gomulka’s cultural thaw after the 1956 Polish October. Published in episodes under the title Next Stop – Paradise in the popular weekly “Panorama”, it showcased this talented writer, a legendary figure of the young generation who had burst upon the literary scene at the age of 18 and had won the official Publisher’s Award in January 1958. Later that year, the book was published in Paris, where Hlasko gave a few interviews that were quite critical of the Polish People’s Republic. The consequences were inevitable: the writer was no longer welcome in his homeland.
   The second half of the 1950’s was a time of transition in Polish culture, a time for correcting the picture of the war generation and focusing on the generation of 1956. As the obsessive propagation of fatalism and historic determinism became a priority of cultural politics, the search was on for skilled artists who could portray fate looming over human life. And fate is the most important hero of The Depot of the Dead. It lives in the squalid huts of the main protagonists and suggests to them the worst possible scenarios – yet always the chance for a better, fulfilled life is within arm’s reach.
   Locating the action in the Bieszczady Mountains, where units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army or UPA were still conducting large-scale post-war civilian displacements and cruel massacres, was no accident. Bieszczady was a barren, cursed land steeped in human misfortune, from which traces of happier lives had vanished forever. In Petelski’s movie, this land gives back the evil it absorbed – with interest. It is a picture of a world dominated by fatalism, a vision of a man manipulated by evil forces.
   - Mariola Dopartowa 10 years 4 months ago

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