Gespenster

Poland in the years before WWI. Nikolai, a young boy from an affluent and academic family quickly has to come to grips with his parents' ill health. At a young age and after the death of his father he is sent to a strict boarding school. The school, one of the Austrian Empire's elite schools in the Galician part of Poland, is run by tyrannical priests. Nikolai, with his independent streak from his dad, quickly comes in conflict with the school authorities, especially after the boy announcing that he believed there is no devil.

Nikolai stays with his aunt and alcoholic uncle, and often has to hear how much money he was costing them. One day he overhears them mentioning that his father has paid them a substantial amount of money to look after his son. It seems his uncle has wasted most of his money on parties and prostitutes. As the boy grows older he becomes politically aware, developing socialist sentiments.

This charming Coming of Age film with great photography, music score and acting, in my view unfortunately has a few minor shortcomings; I would have preferred the relationship between Nikolai and his uncle and aunt being fleshed out in more detail. There is also a scene of school boys folding fighter jets out of paper. Did kids do that during the first few years of the 20th century? I don't know. The director should perhaps have thought of another activity to illustrate the boredom of school kids. These are only minor criticisms; I still score this enjoyable film a good 7/10.

Galicia is a region of Eastern Europe, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until its dissolution at the end of WWI. Galicia's geographical limits are, roughly: North the rivers Vistula and Bug, East the rivers Zbruch and Dniester, South the Tatra and Carpathian Mountains and west the Sola river running through Oswiecim.

Between the wars, Galicia was absorbed into Poland. Today, Western Galicia belongs to Poland and Eastern Galicia to the Ukraine, the limit determined after WWII by preponderance of speakers of each language.

By the beginning of the 19th century nationalist movements (not unlike those beginning to surge in today's Europe) were slowly tearing apart the fabric of the multiethnic, multilingual Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although there were many reasons for the growth of these movements, one was economic (Galicia, untouched by Austria-Hungary's industrial boom was the poorest province of the Empire).

Galicia's largest ethnic group was Ukrainian, the second (very close in size) was Polish and the third Jewish. The culture of each group was at least tolerated by the Empire (with some restrictions in the Jewish case) and their languages recognized; Mikolaj, the protagonist of this movie attends a gymnasium (high school) where Polish is the official language and the Polish culture is given precedence over that of the Empire.

Mikolaj is a scion of a middle class Polish family in Western Galicia living beyond its means (there are hints of a more prosperous past). At the beginning Mikolaj is a child suffering of nightmares (which is the meaning of the Polish title), at the end he has reached early adulthood, the end of his high school education and he is being introduced to secret patriotic societies at risk from Empire spies.

All in all not perhaps the stuff out of which memorable films are made, but director Wojciech Marczewski and cinematographer Wieslaw Zdort manage to create an atmosphere out of wintry melancholic landscapes where dark uniforms and black cassocks are seen from a distance and dark, mysterious or sordid interiors are captured with an expressionistic touch. The movie well deserves watching, although it probably will unfold its full meaning only to Polish viewers.