Robert Więckiewicz on the set of Wojciech Smarzowski's "Angel", photo. Jacek Drygała / Kraków Festival Office
In the opening lines of Jerzy Pilch’s novel The Mighty Angel, Juruś says, "Before (…) the stormy events that I wish to talk about took place (...) I was drinking peach schnapps. That’s right, I was drinking peach schnapps, I was enveloped in an animal-like yearning for the last love before death and I was up to my ears in a licentious existence." [editor’s translation]. Juruś, the novel's protagonist, is a writer and chronic alcoholic living a never-ending cycle of detox, rehab, happy departures from institutions and returns to his empty apartment, abandoned by both his wives. Eventually he ends up in his local bar, The Mighty Angel.
Smarzowski, director of the award-winning, history-tainted love story Rose, first turned Pilch's ironic, philosophical novel into a screenplay. Filming began in October 2012 around Kraków, and Angel is scheduled to premiere in 2014. The cast includes Robert Więckiewicza, Andrzej Grabowski, Marian Dziędziela, Kinga Preis, Marcin Dorociński and Eryk Lubos.
Angel follows Wesele / The Wedding, Dom Zły / The Dark House and Rose, and will be Smarzowski's fifth feature film. According to Bartek Staszczyszyn writing for culture.pl, the director reveals vital issues of Polish identity. The Wedding from 2004, for example, takes up the crucial 1901 play by Stanisław Wyspiański, updating its critical, sarcastic exposure of 19th-century Polish society. Anna Smith, writing for the BBC, says about The Wedding: "Even if many of the cultural references are lost in translation, others survive the journey: drunken wedding guests get everywhere, after all. Chaos sometimes comes before characterisation, however: people slip up before you've got the measure of them, making their downfall both less credible and less satisfying. But as Polish dramas about weddings go, this is a bit of a winner, and a pleasing antidote to Hollywood happy endings." The film received prizes at film festivals in Karlovy Vary and Gdynia and in Locarno, Switzerland.
The Dark House from 2009 is set in the remote Bieszczady Mountains of southeast Poland, during martial law in the 1980s. Rose from 2011 deals with postwar Poland in the northern region of Masuria, handed over to Poland after aggressive Gemanification in the war years, which then poses an existential question for German settlers who remain. The film received awards for Smarzowski's directing and for the screenplay at the Gdynia Film Festival, among its six Golden Lions at the festival, and seven Golden Eagles and Best Film at the Warsaw Film Festival.
Jerzy Pilch’s novel The Mighty Angel was awarded the NIKE, Poland's most eminent literary prize, in 2009. Considered Poland’s most famous story of alcoholism, it is compared to Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano and Venedikt Erofeev’s Moscow-Petushki. It was translated into English by Bill Johnston as The Mighty Angel in 2009, and adapted into a theatre piece at the Polonia Theatre in Warsaw in 2012. Pilch’s other books translated into English include Tysiąc spokojnych miast / A Thousand Peaceful Cities from 1997, Inne rozkosze / His Current Woman from 1995, and Moje pierwsze samobójstwo / My First Suicide from 2006. Kirkus Review singled out A Thousand Peaceful Cities as The Best Fiction of 2010. Their starred review, written by Van Lanen, says, "If laughter actually is the best medicine, fortunate readers of this wonderful novel will surely enjoy perfect health for the rest of their days. Pilch’s writing, all of it, just jumps off of the page. It’s witty, it’s touching; his sentences have so much life, there’s a real joy in his writing…who doesn’t love a story about a drunken plot to assassinate a communist despot with a bow and arrow?" Pilch, in response, said to the Polish Press Agency that "the language used in my novels is hard to translate, so this is definitely a success."
Wojciech Smarzowski’s Angel will open across Poland in 2014.
Sources: based on the text by Bartek Staszczyszyn for culture.pl, BBC, Kirkus
Editor: Marta Jazowska