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| Images courtesy of Radiance Films |
Radiance Films at present might be my favorite boutique
releasing label. From their deluxe
packaging with OBI-spines, beautiful transfers and bold if not unique choices
for titles to publish (many of which made their world premieres on Blu-Ray
disc) and key extras without overwhelming the viewer with too many choices,
they’re in my opinion giving The Criterion Collection and Arrow Video a run for
their money. Catering to more niche and
aesthetically challenging if not experimental fare from all around the globe,
they continue to strive for a kind of zenith of cinema both familiar and yet to
be introduced in the UK or US. Their
latest package comes in the form of Polish writer-director Grzegorz
Królikiewicz’s debut surrealistic and elliptical crime/love story Through
and Through, a film which kicked off an entire oeuvre of like-minded sociopolitical
investigations into either postwar Poland or the country’s transition from
communism into democracy all through the prism of fragmented, avant-garde
filmmaking.
Told through dissonant passages with Bogdan Dziworski’s
1.33:1 black-and-white camera staring either into space or focusing closely on
hands or faces or objects as sounds diegetic and non-diegetic drift in and out
of the soundscape rendered by Janusz Hajdun and Henryk Kuzniak, Through and Through
for all of its experimentation is basically a true crime story set in 1930s
Kraków involving two impoverished youngsters Jan Malisz (Franciszek Trzeciak)
and Maria Maliszowa (Anna Nieborowska) struggling to survive. Opening with the elliptical editing style by
Zofia Dwornik fluctuating in and out of fleeting daydream and a heightened
documentary reality, we pick up on the unlikely twosome’s mutual attraction
when they meet at a rowdy and drunken party.
In and out of humiliating situations, Jan’s desperation grows when he
loses his position at a photography studio due to his alcoholism, leading
towards the brutal murder of an elderly couple culminating in an ethereally
realized courtroom trial and imprisonment focused only on tightly rendered
closeups of the two actors against deep black backgrounds.
Running a tight seventy-four minutes but unfolding in a labyrinthine,
atonal, expressionistic manner replete with an affronting soundscape of
threatening low rumblings, orchestral strumming and intentional lapses in
dialogue and/or scenes where the camera is not looking at what the soundtrack
hears, Through and Through is kind of revolutionary. Experimental yet controlled, nebulous yet
clearly trained on these two characters who are at once criminals and very much
products of society looking the other way from the country’s lower-class
sectors, it packs in a lot to wrestle with despite being seemingly lofty and
possibly adrift. Performance wise, the
film zeroes in on the actors’ faces with tight Bergmanesque close-ups as
Franciszek Trzeciak, an actor turned director later in life, exudes despair and
anguish on his face including an extended long take of tears welling up on his
hardened face. Sadly this is the only
known film performance of actress Anna Nieborowska as his abdicating deflecting
partner-in-crime though her own stern gaze seems to match her lover’s in the
courtroom while on trial. Notable Polish
actor Jerzy Stuhr from the Apocalypse Tetralogy also shows up in it while
Pharoah actor Jerzy Block alongside Irena Ladosiówna play the unfortunate
elderly couple who find themselves under attack by the desperate young
drifters.
Released in 1973 to widespread critical acclaim including
two Best Director wins for Grzegorz Królikiewicz at Interfilm Awards and Josef
von Sternberg Awards ceremonies, Through and Through restored in 2K for
Radiance Films comes to Blu-ray disc for the first time featuring three short
films by Królikiewicz: Everyone Gets What They Don’t Need, Brothers
and Don’t Cry. Also included is a
20-page booklet featuring essay writing by Ela Bittencourt who at one point
interviewed Królikiewicz. A highly
stylized look at the impoverished underbelly of pre-WWII Kraków told through a
wildly experimental fashion and an audacious screen couple, Królikiewicz’s
seamless weaving between fantasy and reality, consciousness and
subconsciousness, neorealist docudrama and nonlinear storytelling remains as
bold as it is unclassifiable beyond the pantheon of pure Polish cinema. Newcomers and longtime followers of Królikiewicz
will be delighted with this release while Radiance collectors will find within Through
and Through a fascinating experiential character study forcing us to look
between the lines rather than straight at the screen.
--Andrew Kotwicki
