Chronicle of Amorous Accidents begins with a quote from Pan Tadeusz:
there is but one region in which there is a crumb of happiness for a Pole: the land of his childhood! That land will ever remain holy and pure as first love…
Wajda idealises the Vilnius region, but to accuse the film of historical falsification would be a misunderstanding, as the director gives numerous hints that we are dealing with a subjective world. First of all, it is the world of the author of the book and screenplay, Tadeusz Konwicki, who spent his youth in Lithuania and described his own experiences. Wajda came up with the excellent idea of casting the writer in the bit part of the Stranger, which was key to understanding the movie. The mysterious man, wearing contemporary clothes and listening to metal music (!) visits Witek as if he was a ghost and tells him the future. There is no doubt that the world presented in Chronicle is a land of memory in which Konwicki’s character is looking for his identity.
Second of all, it is also ‘the land of childhood’ of Andrzej Wajda, who did not in fact grow up in Lithuania, but in Suwałki, but had similar experiences. In his adaptation of Chronicle of Amorous Accidents, the director had the opportunity to visualise one of his own childhood memories – exercises in chivalry. It is not a coincidence that the photograph of Witek’s dead father in fact shows… Second Lieutenant Jakub Wajda, the father of the director.
In Chronicle of Amorous Accidents, Wajda and Konwicki create a mythical land in which they search for their own roots. The authors do not pretend to copy the real world. The surrealism of the space is emphasised by Edward Kłosiński’s photography, slightly dimmed and filled with bright, almost white light – which adds an oneiric feel to the story. Just like in the majority of the works from this director, the mythical world is from the very start infected by death and decay, and threatened by history and reality. The contrast between the idyllic life and the awareness of the upcoming disaster adds melancholy to this plot and makes Chronicle of Amorous Accidents perhaps the most beautiful Polish film about the pre-war period.
Chronicle of Amorous Accidents (original title: Kronika wypadków miłosnych), Poland 1985. Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Screenplay: Tadeusz Konwicki. Cinematography: Edward Kłosiński. Scenography: Janusz Sosnowski, Barbara Nowak. Music: Wojciech Kilar. Cast: Piotr Wawrzyńczak (Witek), Paulina Młynarska (Alina), Krystyna Zachwatowicz (Witek’s mother), Jarosław Gruda (Lowa), Dariusz Dobkowski (Engel), Joanna Szczepkowska (Cecylia), Gabriela Kownacka (Olimpia), Leonard Pietraszak (Nałęcz, Alina’s father), Tadeusz Łomnicki (Pastor Baum), Bernadetta Machała (Greta), Tadeusz Konwicki (the Stranger). Produced by Perspektywa Film Group. Colour, 114 mins.