The Scar [Poland 1976]

Blizna
Director: K. Kieślowski
Cinematographer: S. Idziak

An intense social drama set in socialist Poland around the late 1960s and early 1970s. The plot of this film is complex and deals mainly with the destruction of nature by man and the often irrational nature of bureaucracy.

Kieślowski originally was a documentary filmmaker and apparently was initially suspicious of fictional films as he felt they were not honest enough. The style of a documentary pervades large parts of this film, particularly dialogue between characters. An important character is a TV reporter whose interactions with the protagonist are often framed as if we are watching a documentary. Conversation is frank, with stuttering, rather than dramatic. But the documentary style is successfully mixed with quiet camera framing of the struggle of the protagonist and the characters with which he interacts.

The basic sense one gets from this film is that no one is really getting what they want. It is a depiction of perhaps what can really go wrong with a socialist type bureaucracy. There is only one character who is depicted as totally cynical; the majority seem to be pursuing their own interests but also genuinely interested in the common good. But somehow, in pursuing their own interests, each of the characters seems to give each other the wrong information, leading to a collective catastrophe.

The depiction of socialist Poland is fascinating. Whether we can say it was really socialist, i.e. whether it had the support of the people, I do not know. But certainly the story as depicted is not so simplistic as to suggest that this is simply a 'yes or no' question. The bureaucrats are working for themselves one moment, for the community the next, and the community are not afraid to voice their opinions, although they are often not listened to, and outright patronised by the bureaucrats. There is not outright repression; rather, there is a smug attitude on the part of the bureaucrats that they know what is best. But the irony is that they misinform each other so much that this is most certainly not the case.

But perhaps what we can learn is that a large part of what socialism is cannot be summed up in terms of the form a system takes or even the average 'democratic content' of decisions taken. Perhaps this quote sums up the precise problem in Poland: 'I have a feeling people here don't feel like owners. They fight you, they fail, everything gets on top of them.' This is the local party secretary talking to the protagonist, also a bureaucrat.

Aside from the issues with bureaucracy, the film takes place against a background of events happening in Poland at the time it is set. Thus the 1970 demonstrations against price hikes in Gdańsk play a prominent role, and we are sent strange mixed messages about the protagonist, his feelings about the system, and his murky past from the late 1940s, during which certain characters did things they are not proud of, although we do not find out exactly what. Maybe some of all this innuendo makes more sense to a Polish person; maybe not.

All in all, thought provoking, complex, and well made. And a quote to sum up the film: 'You know what killed my uncle? Not his heart. He died of loyalty to an ideal.'