Salut Tereska

This Polish kitchen sink film, shot in grainy black and white, is a grim portrait of a young girl who is robbed of the hope of redemption by the violence and emotional bleakness of life in her working class neighborhood. It's a skillfully executed film. The stark cinematography emphasizes the grimy day to day existence that confronts the young protagonist. Actress Aleksandra Gietner's portrayal of the teenage Tereska's fall from grace is impeccable and moving. However, Czesc Tereska is a genre film which has its counterparts in just about every country's cinematic repertory. We've already seen numerous depictions of violence in the slums, drunken, unemployed, physically abusive fathers, sexually voracious peers, dehumanizing educational systems. We've seen how young people self-destruct under the insurmountable accumulating burden of these elements. Czesc Tereska, however poignant, fails to contribute any new insights into the familiar, dreadful progression from purity and hopefulness to depravity and destruction. More troubling is the device that director/writer Robert Glinski inserts into his story in the character of Edek, the paraplegic who lusts after Tereska and becomes her victim. Actor Zbigniew Zamachowski turns in a typically masterful performance in this role, but the interactions between the depraved cripple and the pubescent Tereska somehow remain outside the organic development of the narrative. The lack of clear motivation in the evolution of this perverse relationship makes suspect its violent culmination, and the device which may have been intended to differentiate Czesc Tereska from its multiple cinematic counterparts ultimately causes an otherwise disturbingly realistic depiction to ring hollow.

This film shows "Poland B" or the Poland that escapes media's attention, usually focused on the successes of the country's transtional period (or its failures, as in the results of the recent elections). Set in Warsaw, the film follows a story of a young girl living in the kind of "mega-block" that makes vasts portions of Warsaw look like Moscow or Tirana. Hardly anything that is not bleak. Seeing it at the Chicago Film Festival, I noticed the gradual cessation of the audience's chuckles, so common among Americans viewing foreign films portraying experiences not immediately recognizable to them. By the film's end, the room was quiet, and I personally felt almost physically assaulted, the way many people, I suppose, reacted to Lars von Trier's last picture. Unlike "Dancer in the Dark", however, "Czesc Tereska" offers nothing but truth, a painful and utterly bleak truth, which connects us with the kinds of human experience we usually shy away from. A must see, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Hi Tereska is a bitter coming-of-age story set in the working-class neighborhood of a post-industrial Warsaw. Full of a talent that promises the possibility of a brighter future, Tereska, an aspiring fashion designer enrolls in a tailor-training program with dreams of fleeing her sordid surroundings for the glamorous fashion world of Paris. Yet how can she escape when everywhere she looks there is a no-exit sign? With its stunning black and white cinematography, the bleakness of Tereska's world is aptly depicted. From the pathetic figure of her drunken father and tired, working-class mother to the sting of betrayal by her only friend, the bright 15-year old is slowly tarnished and worn away by an environment that strips away her humanity because it offers her nothing else.

However, it would be too easy to write off Tereska as just another victim. Polish director Robert Glinski takes the film a step beyond the trappings of an oh-so sad too bad ruination of a bright kid, and genuinely shocks the audience with his uncompromising portrayal of the vicious cycle of poverty and violence. By the end of the film I was left reeling as I watched the downward spiral of a sweet girl becoming increasingly sadistic and cruel, her vulnerability a threat to not only herself, but to others as well.

First time actor Aleksandra Gietner, cast at a reform school, delivers a genuine and powerful performance that is at times painful to watch. Her style of acting is largely understated-emotions are not cheaply posed on the features, yet often swim just below the surface, contained by Tereska's hardened exterior, to escape only occasionally in an unadorned tear. The guardedness of Tereska's emotions does more to reveal her secret hopes and fears then out-right expression ever could.

Innocence lost is a common theme in cinema, yet rarely is it as bleak and unadorned as Hi Tereska. A bitter pill to swallow without any of the inane albeit soothing comic relief that often candy coats difficult issues in Hollywood film, Hi Tereska is not easy to stomach, but its stark honesty makes it worth the discomfort.

This modest, non-color film by Robert Glinski is one of the most important achievements of Polish cinema after the year 1989. Not just because it won many prestigious awards in the country as well as abroad. (That includes the most important Golden Lions at the Festival in Gdynia the Polish Eagle for the best picture of the year). That is because it is one of the deepest insides and observations of the modern Poland and the costs of changes going in it. The picture is more emotional due to the fact that Glinski turnes his camera on the weakest, nearly children.

The action of the film takes place in a block neighborhood, where the camera only very rarely looked in. The main character's family is neither good nor bad. It is frighteningly normal. The father drinks more and more and occasionally loses his job, while the religiously fanatical mother focuses on the growing daughter. Tereska (Ola Gietner, given the American Young Artist Awards, a teenager form of Oscar) who dreamed about an Art School, gets o a Tailor School. Since she dreams about creating fashion clothes, it is a good direction. The false of that direction will be unnoticed in her environment.

What Tereska has left is the playground filled with its subculture and materialism. Here, nothing except the feeling of being hopeless, is stable. Even friendship and whatsmore the thing that seems to be love. Tereska is however looking for some warm and she finds it thanks to a disabled porter. The relation between that seems at first odd, but later kind of charming. It probably would have turned into something beautiful. It would be a union of the weak against the cruel world. But it would be impossible because of the surrounding, this relations evolves in. Traited by her closest friend and left alone by her family, the girl will seek revenge...

Non-color tape, documentary style, a collection of cast including breakthrough performances and professional actors (Zbigniew Zamachowski as Edzio) - all that seems that Glinski's movie is watched as a common thing that a normal person has contact every day with. The film was shot in one of the block neighborhoods of Warsaw's Prague, but this picture could have been set in many other places. Everywhere where there are no jobs or dreams and where the only thing left is a gray existence with social institutions like the administration or even church, feeling totally helpless. The picture is unwanted, but extremely real.

A talented and pretty little Tereska learns how to live. She does not know how to dream, she was never told that her life belonged to her. All she knows is that she must be nice, praise God by singing in a church choir, don't talk too much, don't fight for her rights, and keep most of her thoughts secret. Nobody cares what she feels and thinks anyway. She is desperately looking for love. But where can she find it if her parents, her teachers, her friends do not know it either?

In a very well designed way this film shows what steps are taken to make a little young angel into a vicious devil. It happens slowly and it is hard to tell who is to blame. An excellent story to start thinking about values, how they are born and why we need them. The film also shows how different we all are and that the only way to be able to live together is to communicate openly and honestly. It seems so simple, yet so difficult. The only time Tereska gets the courage to talk about her dreams she gets scared to death in a self destructive outburst of anger.

I give this movie a 10 because it touches so deeply on the most important life issues: how we think, make decisions, and how narrow minded we are when taking care of our daily problems. It for sure is not a comedy, but I laughed quite a few times. All in all it is a very stimulating movie.