Television feature film directed by Maciej Pieprzyca, 2002. A story of three high school girls, two of whom prove to be murderers of the third, ventures beyond the documentary frame, though its director recreates the social background of the crime in almost documentary fashion...
Inferno was produced by Polish State Television in cooperation with the Studio im. Karola Irzykowskiego (Karol Irzykowski Studio) under the Pokolenie 2000 (Generation 2000) series, designed to provide young directors with an opportunity to make their debut features. The film was directed by Maciej Pieprzyca (b. 1964), a graduate of the Screenwriting Program at the Łódź Film School (1990) who went on to obtain a directing degree from the Radio and Television Department of the University of Silesia in Katowice in 1993.
Pieprzyca is also known as the director of the television series Samo Życie (Life Itself), and as the author of a number of documentaries, including Jestem mordercą... (I am a Murderer...), in which he explored the mysterious story of the 'Vampire of Katowice', a man perhaps wrongly sentenced to death during Communist times in Poland. Pieprzyca's feature film debut resembles this documentary. Just as in I am a Murderer..., so in Inferno we are confronted by a shocking crime that gains much media attention, a murder that actually occurred. And just as in his documentary, Pieprzyca uses the traces and consequences of the crime to reconstruct the path that lead up to it. However, Inferno is ruled by the laws of a narrative feature and not by those of a documentary. This story of three high school girls, of whom two prove to be murderers of the third, ventures beyond the documentary frame, though its director recreates the social background of the crime in almost documentary fashion. The gloomy school corridors, classrooms, restrooms and basements on the day of the prom, the nervous rhythm of the images and the pulsating music and lights are a metaphorical representation of the heroines' mindset. The evil that is released during the prom also comes from within them. It is no accident that the film's title references one of the sections of Dante's Divine Comedy. In one of the opening scenes, a nun teaching a class in religion quotes Saint Augustine in saying that hell is not a sea of flames but a place where man finds himself beyond the boundaries of reason.
The film's highly precise screenplay and editing reinforce its message, though simultaneously rendering it somewhat too literal.
- Inferno, Poland, 2002. Directed by: Maciej Pieprzyca. Screenplay by: Bartosz Kurowski, Maciej Pieprzyca. Director of photography: Marek Traskowski. Featuring: Katarzyna Bujakiewicz, Barbara Kurzaj, Monika Kwiatkowska. Time: 66'.
Awards:
- 2002 - Cierlickie Lato Filmowe / Cierlice Film Summer, "Złoty Debiut" / "Golden Debut" Award
- 2003 - Houston Film Festival, "Bronze Award"; Festival of Feature, Television and Video Films in Avanca, Honorable Mention
Author: Ewa Nawój