The main character of the film is Bartek, a resourceful young man who purports to be a student, though in fact lives off all sorts of fraud. He copies a Master's thesis from a library, then sells it to a friend as a new and original work. He photographs a celebrity so that the photographs provoke ambiguous associations. He sniffs around and eavesdrops. While on a train from Cracow to Warsaw, he witnesses a weird behaviour of a man who suddenly disappears during the journey, leaving behind his coat and case{C}{C}{C}{C}. Bartek takes out a mobile phone from the coat's pocket and becomes an accidental witness to the despair of the man's wife. The following day he happens to meet the allegedly missing man and follows him to the Bieszczady mountains. He finds a way of getting to the man's secret: the man, a respected professor, was in love with a dormitory friend when he was a student. Unfortunately, the girl was attached to someone else. To get rid of the rival, the man associated himself with the Security Service and informed on colleagues involved in opposition activities, trying hard to discredit the girl's boyfriend. He finally succeeded: the boyfriend, ill-famed, left the country, and the prospective professor married the girl. When the boyfriend comes back from abroad years later, the professor, afraid of truth being revealed, fakes his own disappearance. Now Bartek has the compromising evidence of professor's guilt in his hands. How will it affect his future?
" 'Korowód' begins with a puzzle, almost like a classical thriller", observed Katarzyna Nowakowska when interviewing Jerzy Stuhr ("Dziennik", 7th November 2007). "But there is a complete turn at one moment and from then on we are watching a romantic comedy." Stuhr, who also wrote the screenplay which won a prize at the Gdynia Polish Film Festival, replied:
"First there is the phase of a psychological film and only afterwards comes the romantic comedy. Yes, it was planned. I love it, I feel passionate about mixing the genres as much as possible, as much as the audience can stand. I think that the audiences are now so accustomed to watching a multitude of genres that it is easy for them to switch to another genre with an internal remote control. This is my never-ending experiment."
The inconsistence of the genres, which is typical of Stuhr's filmmaking, does not affect the coherence of his reasoning, and Korowód is a powerful appeal in defence of the fundamental values of integrity, loyalty and truth, even if very complicated. In this sense it is also an appeal for political screening, however difficult the process of cleansing the society and arriving at truth may be. The punishment for betrayal of values, however, must depend not only on the extent of guilt, but also on the circumstances which may have prompted the incriminating activity.
- Korowód / Twists of Fate, Poland 2007. Written and directed by Jerzy Stuhr, photography: Bartosz Prokopowicz, music: Paweł Szymański, art director: Monika Sajko-Gradowska, costume designer: Elżbieta Radke, editing: Elżbieta Kurkowska, sound: Nikodem Wołk-Łaniewski. Starring: Kamil Maćkowiak (Bartek Wilkosz), Karolina Gorczyca (Kasia), Katarzyna Maciąg (Ula), Jan Frycz (Professor Zdzisław Dąbrowski), Aleksandra Konieczna (Professor's wife), Maciej Stuhr (Tomek). Produced by OTO Studio, Telewizja Polsat, Studio Filmowe "Zebra", co-financed by the Polish Film Institute. Distributed by Fundacja Film Polski. Relased on 9th November 2007.
Author: Konrad J. Zarębski, November 2008
Awards:
- 2007 - for best screenplay, Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.