Historie milosne
Ten years ago, on a rainy afternoon in Seattle, I saw a film in the Polish Film Festival that stuck with me. Back then, I went to films when I could, between work and all the responsibilities of being a Mom. Luckily Seattle has a film festival going on almost all the time. They also have films playing at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) all year round, which is how I finally got to see a film print of Death in Venice. Seattle is where I met Wim Wenders, too and got his autograph and shook his hand and got a big smile from him, but I've digressed.
This film that I saw 10 years ago in Seattle that stuck with me....I can still remember specific images, but mostly it was the story that got me. I remembered it as being about people who get letters that change their life, a priest learns he has a daughter, a woman finds a letter from an ex lover that she didn't know had been sent, a letter that might have changed everything. This is what I love about films, these scenarios that would probably never happen in real life. In real life, the letter would be delivered, or never sent, maybe the priest would find out he had a daughter and pay the mother hush money and we'd never hear about any of it, in films, we get to see the struggle, the decisions, the actions, and what happens next.
I'm digressing again...
So, this film stuck with me, but I couldn't remember the title, the director, the year I saw it, none of that. I asked people about it..I'd describe it to film people: it's black and white, a drama, about a priest and letters and ... no one could figure it out, until last week.
I mentioned the film to a true film guru, though I originally told him it might be Romanian, and he sent me some titles, then I said, oh geez, it's actually Polish, so then he knows the person who programs the Seattle Polish Film Festival and sent me a link to the past programs and there was the film, from the 6th annual festival. To top things off, he knows the distributor who released the film in the U.S. and is going to send a copy right to my house.
It's pretty amazing, considering I sat in that theatre all those years ago and fell in love with this film and walked away thinking I'd never get to see it again. I should take better notes...
Here's more on the film:
Historie milosne
Four stories of love: yearned-for, betrayed, found. In the confessional, a priest is confronted for the first time by his eleven-year-old daughter (and seeks advice from his mother); a married colonel in the Polish Army is reunited with an old lover; a convict is jilted by his wife but has the last word; a professor of literature must decide how to react to a lackluster student who declares she is in love with him. Sometimes things go wrong, occasionally right. (The colonel flushes love letters down a toilet, rather than burn them.) In each vignette, the protagonist is played by Jerzy Stuhr, who also wrote and directed.
This film that I saw 10 years ago in Seattle that stuck with me....I can still remember specific images, but mostly it was the story that got me. I remembered it as being about people who get letters that change their life, a priest learns he has a daughter, a woman finds a letter from an ex lover that she didn't know had been sent, a letter that might have changed everything. This is what I love about films, these scenarios that would probably never happen in real life. In real life, the letter would be delivered, or never sent, maybe the priest would find out he had a daughter and pay the mother hush money and we'd never hear about any of it, in films, we get to see the struggle, the decisions, the actions, and what happens next.
I'm digressing again...
So, this film stuck with me, but I couldn't remember the title, the director, the year I saw it, none of that. I asked people about it..I'd describe it to film people: it's black and white, a drama, about a priest and letters and ... no one could figure it out, until last week.
I mentioned the film to a true film guru, though I originally told him it might be Romanian, and he sent me some titles, then I said, oh geez, it's actually Polish, so then he knows the person who programs the Seattle Polish Film Festival and sent me a link to the past programs and there was the film, from the 6th annual festival. To top things off, he knows the distributor who released the film in the U.S. and is going to send a copy right to my house.
It's pretty amazing, considering I sat in that theatre all those years ago and fell in love with this film and walked away thinking I'd never get to see it again. I should take better notes...
Here's more on the film:
Historie milosne
Four stories of love: yearned-for, betrayed, found. In the confessional, a priest is confronted for the first time by his eleven-year-old daughter (and seeks advice from his mother); a married colonel in the Polish Army is reunited with an old lover; a convict is jilted by his wife but has the last word; a professor of literature must decide how to react to a lackluster student who declares she is in love with him. Sometimes things go wrong, occasionally right. (The colonel flushes love letters down a toilet, rather than burn them.) In each vignette, the protagonist is played by Jerzy Stuhr, who also wrote and directed.
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