Wojciech Bąkowski - films

The latest animation by Bąkowski is like a song with clearly distinct verses. The subject of Spoken Film 4 is made clear by its very first words: "I drive my soul – hard, ‘til its unrecognizable."  The director is searching for stability in a world plunged into chaos and filled with a cacophony of stimuli. In Spoken Film 4, an awareness of existential absurdity is combined with a sophisticated form and nonchalant expression.

A monolog that is poetic in its grousing along with provocatively minimalistic animation. Throughout this tale, which is told to the rhythm of the music, the narrator combines colloquial Polish, technical jargon, and philosophical ideas. Amid thoughts about the Big Bang and broken clocks, a tragicomedy of everyday life plays out in front of our eyes. Białoszewski would have been proud.

Once again, Wojciech Bąkowski smuggles poetry into the territory of everyday life. In Film mówiony 6 (Spoken Film 6), he also experiments with form and uses, for the first time in his creative work, elements of puppet animation. Filled with metaphors, the imagery provides a background for a colorful dialog about a journey. While its meaning and purpose remain a mystery to the audience, it is difficult to remain indifferent to this charmingly sincere request to a taxi driver: "Shut your mouth and drive!"

A coquettish creative manifesto without any uplifting slogans or fiery declarations. Instead, we get an irony-filled recording of struggles with reality. The raw, punk form is ideal for the rough content. Robienie nowych światów (The Making of New Worlds) looks rebelliously to the past and can be seen as a love letter to the golden era of VHS.

At the same time, both a soothing and dangerous journey into the subconscious. Suggestive visions disrupt the logical order and allow dormant instincts to have their say. Somewhere in the background resonates a reflection on the ongoing virtualization of reality. Instead of being a warning against progress, Bąkowski’s film – in a similar fashion to Robienie nowych światów (Making New Worlds)– has a surprising whiff of nostalgia. Budowa dnia (Construction of the Day) is closer to a computer game in the style of Wolf3D than to the famous Suicide Room.

The film Dry Standpipe contains several different disciplines: visual arts, literature and music. This synthesis is the characteristic trait of Wojciech Bąkowski who has won Polityka’s Passport and who is one of the most well-known Polish artists of recent years. In this creation, the sight of abstract shapes are complemented by a commentary based on Bąkowski’s own poetry which inspired the author to make the film.

A lyrical meditation on the uncertainty of the senses and the unreliability of perception. In typical fashion, Bąkowski stages a performance that attaches equal importance to the words, images, and sound. The narrator, in the person of the director himself, travels blindly around the periphery of everyday life. Pogorszenie widzenia (Worsening of Eyesight) was conceived as an evocative report about this journey.

Piotr Czerkawski