De la veine à revendre

I realize that some of the acting in "Bad Luck" may seem to be dated, but still, this movie is one of my all-time favorites. Outwardly, it shows three pictures from Polish history in a caricatural and grotesque way: the 1930s, the German occupation, and the 1950s. It ridicules the "god and country" spirit of the 1930s, some heroic myths from the times of Nazi occupation, and the grotesque, Kafka-like reality of the society living behind the iron curtain. So for casual viewing, the film deals only with Polish problems and does not have universal appeal, but if you look at it more closely, it asks much deeper questions. First of all, what the film says on the surface is, to a large extent, true-the same way as Monty Python's films are still valid. Secondly, "Bad Luck" is also an illustration of some universal truths. Specifically, we are always following some patterns of behavior that don't necessarily agree with our personality. So we sell our own personality to win over a woman, achieve popularity with other people, gain money and position, or simply follow the current fashions even in case we regard them as silly or wrong. This is somewhat similar to the themes touched on by the Polish writer Witold Gomrowicz in his novel "Ferdydurke", but in the form of a funny comedy. Thirdly, I think that "Bad Luck" also touches on the problem of indoctrination, and its overall conclusions are timeless. I watched this movie for the first time in the late 1970s, when I was 18 years old, and at that time I was having similar thoughts about some of Polish traditions. Even though I was raised in a Catholic family in communist Poland, by the time I was 18, I already had the same views on communism as George Orwell and looked at Catholic doctrines from the point of view of "The Life of Brian". My favorite writers then were Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Jean Paul Sartre, Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Miller, and Saul Bellow. In comparison to those names, some Polish writers that we (together with my colleagues) had to study at school looked to us boring, shallow-minded, and their characters one-dimensional and flat. I mean mostly writers like Mickiewicz, Sienkiewicz, and Zeromski. Without contesting the literary talents of those people, we had completely different interests and didn't want to waste our time on studying them. I was also beginning to understand that my ancestors in Poland were farmers or craftsmen, and in "independent Poland" were treated much like Blacks in America before Martin Luther King. So a lot of my colleagues were rebelling against the upbringing where too much stress was put on patriotism and nationalism. Thanks to movies like "Bad Luck", Monty Python, or films with young Malcolm McDowell, we knew that we were not just a bunch of unruly teenagers. But skepticism and negation are just first steps. In my case, I became an engineer, moved to the West for some years, and worked for many years in international teams with people from various nationalities and races in a constructive way. This experience makes me think that schools should focus on science, and when it comes to humanities, the emphasis should be only on the heritage common to all mankind.

If we are lucky in our youth we will meet someone whose tale of woe, of rotten luck, of good work gone for nothing reveals itself to be a consequence of self-absorbed indifference to the true lives of others.

Piszczyk tells his own story. At the outset we know he is in prison and wants to stay there. For the 108 minutes (in the Polart DVD) of Munk's farce, Piszczyk, a Harry Langdon character for all Munk's chaplinesquerie, unwittingly persuades us his bad luck is a direct consequence of his moral cowardice. From his childhood in prewar, protofascist Poland through middle age in Stalinist Poland, he hasn't a clue beyond his own immediate safety and gratification.

Piszczyk stumbles through the worst atrocities of European history without compassion, encountering the Good and the Bad, the Noble and the Ignoble, oblivious to consequence, ready to be used indiscriminately by anyone who offers him any form of reward. The sooner in life we meet such people the better our chances of escaping their fate.

Most importantly, Munk makes us laugh at him, monster though he is.

The tone of the humor in this remarkable film (a delicious treat for any aficionados of central European cinema, especially), is remarkably like some Ealing comedies I've seen ...'Kind Hearts and Coronets' and 'The Lavender Hill Mob', come readily to mind. The director must have seen a bit of American slapstick & french farce, of the 1920's-30's, or at least digested a few choice examples to elaborate upon. Not wanting to give away the plot,or try to define the movie in any tangible way, I find myself at a loss for words. See for yourself, it's to unique to risk selling short by focusing on Favorite Scenes, or trying to figure where it stands in relation to Polish cinema as a whole. I don't recall feeling so turned on my head, and disoriented by a comedy, since Kon Ichikawai's 'Fires on the Plain'.