Citizen focuses on an ordinary citizen but this film is sublime in showcasing the banality and absurdity of being in the wrong place at the right time at major events of recent Polish history.
This is the latest from Jerzy Stuhr who is both actor and director. In Citizen we follow the hapless Jan Bratek who always seems to be in the middle of major events happening to Poland over the past 60 years. The film focuses in reverse chronological order on important moments in Polish history that in an absurd way become important moments for the protagonist: free elections, martial law, 1970, 1968 and 1956. It feels a little like Benjamin Button where it starts at the end and works back to the beginning or possible 5X2 by Francois Ozon insofar as it takes significant moments in Bratek’s life. He’s been on both sides: for the people, against the people and throughout you can’t help laugh at his misfortune.
Like a lot of Polish cinema Citizen looks back at the suffering and turbulent times of modern Polish history and whilst a lot of the subject matter is difficult: secret police, imprisonment for being enemies of the State it takes an irreverent tone which might have failed but for the mastery in the way in which Jerzy Stuhr handles the subject matter. Obviously those events are difficult but as most people know even in the most difficult and darkest of times it is the absurdity and laughter in those situations that saves a person’s sanity. Here Stuhr brings that to the forefront and one of my favourite scenes is when Bratek realises that he is literally in bed with the Secret Police. If you are looking for something that shakes your very core this film will not do that. It treats the viewer as an observer and so it’s the absurdity of it all that makes you laugh which in itself is an emotion. There are echoes of Forrest Gump but I think that comparison does it a disservice. Citizen is more nuanced than that and life is not a box of chocolates but chance encounters and wrong turns.
It will be shown at the ICA on 11 April as part of the New Polish Cinema listing in the 13th Kinoteka film festival which runs across London venues encompassing screenings, talks and performance art from 8 April until 29 May 2015. This is one of my picks for the festival that you should go, see and enjoy.
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