Their film was the story of how music in communist Poland became a tool for fighting the oppressive system, and it was a way for young people to manifest their strength and sense of dignity. Built from archival recordings and interviews with the most important musicians of the time, Gnoiński and Słota’s film became a story about the Polish need for freedom. Paweł Potoroczyn, the producer of the film, said:
Many people have a story; some have a legend. This film is about them. Rock is as much a part of culture as any other kind of good music, such as poetry, film or comics. You cannot tell the story of the phenomenon of Polish freedom without telling the story of free culture, and rock was its loudest and most popular part. Some people printed samizdat and threw leaflets; others made their guitars and built amplifiers. Both went down in history.
‘Miłość’ (2012) – a Yass revolution
Here is one of the most notable music documentaries in Polish cinema in recent years: a tender portrait of the revolutionaries of Polish jazz, rebels seeking a new musical language for themselves. Its protagonists are the musicians of the band Miłość (Love): Tymon Tymański, Mikołaj Trzaska, Maciej Sikła, Leszek Możdżer and Jacek Olter (Krystian Matysek made an excellent documentary about his suicide titled Olter). It was they who threw down the gauntlet to sluggish Polish jazz, becoming one of the most important bands of the 1990s.
In telling the story of Miłość, Filip Dzierżawski does not erect a film monument to these young artists but rather paints a portrait of a group of people united by their love of music and divided by differences in character and choice of life paths.
His Miłość is, above all, a story about music as a language of communication. There is a beautiful scene of a rehearsal in Dzierżawski’s film. After years of separation, the band members meet at the home of one of them. They look at the sheet music and begin to play. Suddenly, Trzaska interrupts and asks them to play it all more spontaneously, without being overly decorous. They start playing again, and in time, the notes give way to improvisation. They listen to each other, they follow the sounds of their partners, and instead of reading the ‘text’ written in the notes, they start talking. Suddenly, their music comes alive. The audience clearly sees the understanding of people who were once very close to each other and who, even after many years, have found a common language. At the end of the jazz gallop, they all look at each other, smiling as if younger. This is how music happens, says Filip Dzierżawski, and for a moment, he lets the audience experience this extraordinary reality.