More Majewski in May:

The Christchurch Art Gallery, in conjunction with the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at Canterbury University and the Canterbury Film Society, presented an evening with visiting Polish artist/filmmaker Lech Majewski on 1 April 2009. Majewski showed excerpts from his Blood of a Poet video art installation that was a feature of the 2007 Venice Biennale, going on to tour preeminent galleries worldwide.

On Friday evenings in May, we will present more of the works of Lech Majewski, including the complete Blood of a Poet work and a stunning film opera for which Majewski wrote the music and libretto, designed the set, and directed. Entry is by koha. Free for Canterbury Film Society members.

Glass Lips / Blood of a Poet cycle – 2007, 100 mins. – Fri 8 May, 5:30pm

The film began its life as an installation of interrelated video art features, entitled Blood of a Poet that opened Lech Majewski’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on May 3, 2006. Rejecting dialogue and chronology it marked an innovative approach to the traditional narration: simultaneous flow of images, events, and visual associations created a cross-section of a human consciousness.

Based on this cycle, Majewski assembled a full-length feature, Glass Lips, telling the story of a young poet at odds with himself and with the world. After the death of his mother - although the possibility of “after” is always, in Glass Lips, relative - the young poet finds himself shut away in a psychiatric ward. From his isolation he sees his mother, his violent father and his father’s lovers. Through this process of remembering, the visions overlap and communicate with one another, continually asking the viewer to develop a new method of interpretation.

The Roe’s Room – 1997, 90 mins. – Fri 15 May, 5:30pm

An autobiographical film opera with music, libretto, and direction by Lech Majewski. Within their apartment, a father, mother, and son bear the dulling yoke of an ordinary urban life. His mind and heart borne aloft by the cycle of the seasons and the images and music within him, he son transforms his cloistered existence into a richly poetic emotional utopia. As autumn arrives, crackling flakes of plaster become falling leaves. With spring, a cold hard floor comes alive with meadow grass and love beckons in the form of a beautiful young girl’s outstretched hand.

“Ravaging intensity!.. In The Roe's Room Majewski has a vision of a kind of paradise or blessedness, though it is fleeting and melancholy, as the natural world invades a comfortable apartment. Grass and trees grow, blood flows from the walls, time passes in a smooth reverie of beautiful music and imagery. The surreal, when it works, defies description. In The Roe’s Room it works, with a sense of poetic decency underneath it and none of the coldness or superficial irony of so much video art.”
Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post

Wojaczek – 1999, 90 mins. – Fri 22 May, 5:30pm

A feature about Rafał Wojaczek, a rebellious poet who died prematurely, like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jim Morrison, in his twenties. Fuelled by his self-destructive life, his poetry made a lasting impression on generations of Poles. He drank and fought and walked through windows. Constantly attempting suicide he unsuccessfully hung himself and jumped from the third floor.

Confronting death on a daily basis, he tried to tame it. Loved by women, he cared for no one, not even himself, living desperado-style only for poetry. Conscious of the need for myth in the mythless reality of communist Poland, he burned his life as an offering.

“Superb and surprisingly witty. Wojaczek operates on a deadpan comic tone established by its achingly beautiful sense of visual composure. Excellent!”
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Awards:
Prix Don Quixote, Barcelona 2000
Best Actor Nomination, European Academy Awards, Paris 2000
Best European Film, Corato 2000
Grand Prix, Klajpeda 2000
Best Director, Best Cinematography, Trencianske Teplice 2000
Prix special, European Cinema Forum, Strasbourg, 2000
International Federation of Film Societies Prize, 2001

Prisoner of Rio – 1988, 90 mins. – Fri 29 May, 5:30pm

Lech Majewski’s first major motion picture.

In the seductive haunts of Rio de Janeiro, among the sultry mulattas, lives the world’s most wanted man, the Great Train Robber, Ronald Biggs. Scotland Yard has never gotten over it. He’s eluded them. Outwitted them. Embarrassed them. And they’ll do anything to bring him back to Justice.

Jack McFarland (played by Steven Berkoff) is the man for the job. A worthy contender, he’s cool, ruthless and canny. He’s the best of Scotland Yard. Knowing that Brazil doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Great Britain, he has to go beyond the law. Who will win the duel of wits? Will McFarland trap the master of escape? Or will he become a prisoner of samba, sex and sorrow in the city that seduces like a beautiful woman?

Ends

© Scoop Media