New Polish comedy "Podlasie" sparks criticism from Belarusians of Podlasie
In their review of the film in the Polish publication Krytyka Polityczna, Paulina and Wojciech Siehien raise the broader issue of the deliberate "erasure of traces" of Belarusian identity and Orthodoxy in Podlasie.
A scene from the film. Photo: filmweb.pl
The film "Podlasie" (dir. Łukasz Kośmicki) was released on the Netflix platform before Catholic Easter, on April 1st. Its creators present it as a "warm comedy" about family values. However, watching this film evoked entirely different thoughts in Paulina and Wojciech Siehien (Wojciech is a councilor of the Dubicze Cerkiewne commune, Paulina is a journalist and writer). They shared their thoughts on the pages of "Krytyka Polityczna".
The director created a work that exploits the ancient Polish topos of a "paradise place" (locus amoenus) — a mythical land of harmony and happiness, the Siehiens write.
«The viewer gets acquainted with a friendly community whose daily life is organized around work and the church. The plot is driven by a sudden hostile intervention from the outside world, which begins to threaten the characters (the main character took out micro-loans to buy bitcoins and cannot repay them). The characters show solidarity and, acting amidst the beautiful nature and cultural landscape of Podlasie, overcome life's difficulties, restoring the local status quo», — the authors briefly retell the content of the film and remark:
«The plot, as flat as the Mazovian plain, and stale jokes result in the film remaining a painfully trivial story about aboriginals who speak with a strange accent and use archaic words. Despite the screenwriters' efforts, beneath the meager frames of a naive world, its opposite is revealed — locus horridus — a world of chaos, fear, death.
It's not even about the local community's distinctiveness being embodied by two secondary alcoholic characters who clumsily hide their addiction from their wives. Apparently, this was the screenwriters' idea — to play on the stereotype that everyone in the east distills moonshine and drinks heavily. The plot breaks free from the authors' control and begins to live its own life — and it is wildly brutal.»
Photo: filmpolski.pl
The authors particularly sharply criticize the fabricated explanation of the history of the ruins of St. Anthony's Church in Jałoŭka (Michałowo commune), located a kilometer from the border with Belarus. In the film, the destruction of the sanctuary is explained as an accident: a priest allegedly unintentionally burned down the church while distilling moonshine. The Siehiens remind us that these ruins are witnesses to a real tragedy:
«These ruins are evidence of a real calamity that unfolded in this town. The church was burned down during the war and was never rebuilt. The synagogue was also burned there at that time. The real horror that hangs over the real Podlasie is the history of pogroms, the Holocaust, during which Jews perished, and post-war ethnic cleansings that took place in the idyllic settings of the villages shown in the film.
And it is precisely in those moments when objects from the background of the frame begin to speak in their own voice that the mythical world of happiness in the film is replaced by the real world of death.»
And where are the Belarusians? There are no Belarusians
In their review of the film, Paulina and Wojciech Siehien raise the broader issue of the deliberate "erasure of traces" of Belarusians and Orthodoxy in Podlasie.
In their opinion, this film should be compared with the essay-book by Aneta Prymyaka-Onishk, a Belarusian from Podlasie, "Stones Had to Fly. The Erased History of Podlasie". In her work, the writer built an epic reportage about the Polish-Belarusian borderland and what is commonly called "the fate of a minority", centered around the case of her grandfather's murder in 1945.
«An eye familiar with the local landscape notices a shot with a Catholic priest addressing the faithful in the middle of a village, but doing so next to crosses with a diagonal crossbar characteristic of Orthodoxy and inscriptions in Cyrillic. It notices a traditional embroidered towel in the corner of a village house, but the shot is framed so that the icon that this towel adorns is not visible.
Photo: filmpolski.pl
The Podlasie eye catches frames with an Orthodox chapel in Piatraški, filmed in such a way that trees obscure the Orthodox dome. It sees paving and houses in villages that in reality are not even multicultural, but simply Orthodox, where Catholics (excluding newcomers) are rare. For the region southeast of Białystok, between Bielsk and Hajnówka, is the very heart of Orthodox Podlasie», — the authors write.
The criticism also touches upon the language issue. The authors write in this regard about "the triumph of simulacrum over reality". Everything sounds as if the only language consultant for the film's authors was the Białystok blogger Kaloŭrak — "the most famous Instagram promoter of the fictional 'Podlasie language,' who turned self-deprecation and ignorance (which can generally be called a marketing strategy based on self-orientalization) into a regional product."
«And it is senseless to explain to Kaloŭrak and the screenwriters that people in the villages used in the film speak a Podlasie variant of the Belarusian language among themselves. And if they sometimes speak Polish, they use forms like "ja mówił" [I spoke - masculine form], where the grammar remains Belarusian», — the Siehiens argue.
Another telling detail pointed out by the authors is the characters' surnames — Madej or Wolak — which are atypical for Podlasie. Such surnames are not found there.
«This is no accident, — write the Siehiens. — The goal was not to show this part of Podlasie as it is. The goal was to seize it, to carry out a cultural hostile takeover, to use the attractive cultural landscape, the imagined locus amoenus, and to fit it into the familiar framework of Polish imagination.
But if the locals are not in this picture, then what about them? Where did they disappear to? Why are strangers living in their houses? What happened here? These questions rightly send shivers down one's spine, and exhaustive answers to them can be found in Aneta Prymyaka-Onishk's books», — the Siehiens write.
Photo: filmpolski.pl
"Poles love the Eastern note, but don't love the people who created it"
As the authors emphasize, the cultural landscape in which "Podlasie" takes place was created not by Madejs and Wolaks. «It was created by people of Ruthenian (in the sense of Rus' — Belarus and Ukraine, not Russia) origin, the autochthonous inhabitants of these territories, who in the era of maturing national and political consciousness identified themselves as Belarusians.
In the Polish cultural imagination, as seen in the example of the film, there is no place for them, — write Paulina and Wojciech Siehien. — Podlasie Belarusians could exclaim, like black Americans when they talk about the blues: the Polish majority loves the Eastern note, but doesn't love the people who created it.»
The authors bitterly state that the process of erasing consciousness is accompanied by the practice of self-erasure, when local residents choose a safe, but indistinct "localness." The Siehiens bitterly remark: no matter how patriotic Poles the Orthodox residents of the region present themselves to be, "these Orthodox cousins will still be cut out of the family Polish photo."
«There is no place there for Ivaniuks, Dzmitruks, and Parfianiuks. On the collective portrait, even if the background is a wooden Podlasie house and the costumes are shirts with Belarusian folk ornamentation, there will only be room for Madejs, Wolaks, and the kindly priest.»
The authors call the film "Podlasie" an Orientalist hackwork.
«This is a region that entices with the exoticism of village houses, but at the same time makes one laugh with its backwardness. The amusing and gentle Podlasie, populated by figures of noble savages, has become a convenient backdrop for the projection of Kresy mythology,» — the Siehiens argue and call on local residents to reflect.
Photo: filmpolski.pl
«Does this not contribute to the art of mimicry, constant understatement, confusion in discussions about identity, which increasingly lead to regression — a departure from national self-awareness with its political consequences to pre-modern identifications, where only "we are locals" and "our language" remain?»
This inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to speak about themselves in categories of nation or even ethnic group does not allow for building a position of confident hosts who could speak without complexes about themselves and their piece of land
with their Polish (and Catholic) fellow citizens. Instead of leading them into the swamps,» — the Siehiens conclude.