Cinema of a (Post-)Discourse: cases from Belarus and Poland

Introduction: Two Approaches

Recent Polish film Mowa Ptaków (Bird Talk) is not widely popular, but it has an extremely different approach to working with a discourse, which is quite amuzing to look at and to compare. This text itself may be called an analysis of Mowa Ptaków, but in comparison with recent Belausian film II (Two) and viewed through the optics of working with social discourses.

Both films are not easy to summarise in a couple of words – Mowa Ptaków may be said to be a movie about a father and a son, but, at the same time, a movie about many characters “excluded from the agressive majority[1]”, a movie about radicalization and a meta-movie about creating a movie. II may be called a film about HIV in school, but, precisely, it is a movie about a society, which deals with something unexpectied, not-so-much-known-about and stygmatized. Also, it is a movie about stereotypes and social norms.

In this essay, I would like to establish two therms:

1. Cinema of a Discourse – movies, which deal with a topic, important to the specific society at a specific moment of time at a specific place. Cinema of a Discourse uses contemporary technologies of production and distribution and, at a certain historical moment, gets an attention of, at the first place, not film critics and not film festivals, but the larger (usually local) society. Many films of Italian neoreallsm, French New Wave, Polish school and post-soviet 90-s seem to get close to this therm. Notice how most of these are connected to film movements – and this essay will also talk about why a film movement is important to the Cinema of a Discourse.

2. Cinema of a Post-Discourse – movies, which defeat a discourse itself. As well as previous therm, they work with topics, important to local society at a certain moment of time, but Cinema of a Post-Discourse doesn’t develop those topics, instead jumping over them. Topics serve as a context, in which a post-modernist or meta-modernist irony takes place. Overcoming a discourse, this kind of a film achieves something, which is hardly achieved by us in real life. In reality, we seem to be captured inside a collection of discources. We can’t step out of them as easily, as Cinema of a Post-Discourse may do.

The film II is, in my opinion, a movie which seems to try really hard to be inside these Cinema of a Discourse. The film Mowa Ptaków, on the other hand, tries to overcome discourse, and by doing that gets close to the Cinema of a Post-Discourse. These are two completely different approaches, which may or may not work well.

Mowa Ptaków is divided into many closely-connected and crossing parts, which represent either a certain character or an event. I’ve took a half of the chapter names for an essay: the Historian, the Writer, the Orphan, the Sick, the Spy and the Master. And at the beginning, it’s probably worth it to talk about contexts of both films.

The Historian: Contexts and Discourses

For more than 10 years, Poland is ruled mostly by a conservetive party PiS. In the current political climate, elements of the clericalism and extreme nationalism continue to grow. For the moment of this text being written, PiS gets even more influence, taking over eletions system[2]. Mowa Ptaków deals with a radicalized society, which is in many ways similar to a real one, but is taken to the extreme. From the beginning of the film, themes of anti-semitism and far-right violence become established, as well as themes of clericalism and conservatism. Even though being shown in a kind of a grotesque manner (scenes inside a STD-clinic, for example), some parts of the film take inspiration from real events. For instance, students putting a thrash can on a teacher’s head[3] or annual March of Independence[4].

II doesn’t seem to be so connected to a political background, but it also makes a commentary on a society. In its depiction, II also seemes grotesque. While in Mowa Ptaków it is conscious and is used with a help of music, references or theatrical acting style, II seems to take itself quite seriously. It may have worked, but when you see a school authority which takes a hand sanitizer from her bag in exactly at the moment someone said one of the students has HIV – it's hard to take the movie seriously. The film shows how stygmatized the topic is and how Belarusian society is afraid of it – but there is nothing specific in such a context. It’s really universal and cosmopolitan, and that’s why the director Vlada Senkova sais that in whatever country the movie is shown everyone seems to understand it.

Is it an advantage? I would argue. Unspecific HIV topic is not even attached to certain recent events in Belarus or in a region. When you hear people talking on the streets, they would hardly be mentioning HIV – not just because it is stygmatized, but because it’s quite difficult to resonate with specific (Belarusian) society at a specific time (2019-2020). From the side of Mowa Ptaków, political and social topics it touches are relevant to specific (Polish) society at a specific time (2019-2020). That may be one of the factors why it’s easier to find a discussion around Mowa Ptaków than to find a discussion around II.

The Writer: Bird Talk or the Language of the Birds?

I suggest that Mowa Ptaków is a realist film. Not in a classical sense, but in a sense Jacques Rivette gave it: The true realist refuses to analyze and dissect his vision a priori, following the usual schemas and employing the usual scalpels, and instead transcribes it, as it is and without intermediary, onto celluloid by putting the camera in direct contact with the reality of his vision.[5] Indeed, the director of the film Xavery Żuławski, following his father’s screenplay, shows his vision of the world, put through his filmmaking style. It’s comepletely subjective and feels more sincere to me than the “realist” realism of II, with its prominent realist camera shake, timing, acting and storyline. Mowa Ptaków is a complicated story, but the shots look easy, not too much thought about.

How the discourse functions in a society? For example, there may be a popular topic in a certain network of institutions – let’s say, in schools of a specific country. It may be connected to certain problems, to trends or even to certain people. At some point, it gets outside this social bubble and spreads in the whole local society – through talks, memes, social networks, traditional medias etc. At this point it may be called hype and bloggers on YouTube usually know how to deal with a discourse when it gets relevant to more and more people. It’s more difficult for filmmakers, at least because it takes much more time to make a movie or even an episode of a series than to make a quick video covering some problem/point.

In the world of Mowa Ptaków, this mechanism itself seems to malfunction. In the first half of the film, every character seems to be in his or hers social bubble, not getting much information from outside but getting more and more from the inside. Even in the beginning, both the teacher, who argues that the Poland should have better been “the first country in the East than the last county in the West” - and his far-right students - are radical and not able to hear one another. This is how the title may be simply interpreted – because bird talk is something which is not understandable and makes little sense to the people.

On the other hand, there are arabic poems of Attar[6] and Ali-Shir Nava’i[7] , where characters learned this supreme bird talk by overcoming varied difficulities. The same way, from the middle of the film, main characters organise and learn a common language, which they need to rob a bank (oh, what a discourse!) In a Russian fairytale[8] language of the birds is essential to getting power – and that also may help in interpreting the film, because the writer Marian by the end gets a power to start and stop the narration and to do whatever he wants with the story.

Cinema is not langle in a traditional sense, because, as Christian Metz mentioned in his book Film Language: A Semiotics of Cinema[9], it doesn’t have such strict rules of grammar and syntax. But, in a way, cinema may be called a language, made of shots – and structured like a language. And the writer Marian is learning it, the same way as Xaweri Żulawski tries to learn that film language in real life. From the beginning shot of the film it’s clear that Marian and Xaweri are more or less the same entity, as well as Marian’s father represents Xaweri’s father, Andrzej Żuławski. Isn’t it egoistic? - some would ask. Maybe it is, but I see nothing wrong with it.

The Orphan: Society Against Society

Comparing situations in Polish and Belarusian cinema, Polish still has much stronger positions in the county itself and worldwide. There are more filmmakers, film studios, ambitions and experiments. One of which is Mowa Ptaków - at least, in terms of narration and defeating a discourse.

II is not a bad film at all. Its story is quite interesting to follow, its characters are sympathetic, its cinematography is conventional but good-looking, and the film lasts an hour so it doesn’t bore a viewer. All of those features are not rare both in European cinema and in Hollywood, but for Belarusian independant filmmaking, having this is still quite new. That’s why II is celebrated inside Belarusian bohema (which is itself a social bubble), but is not so widely talked about in the society. Now, unfortunantly, every Belarusian movie is an event[10], but only within a reletevely small group of people.

Mowa Ptaków, on the other hand, was doomed to be talked about in major medias. At least because there was controversy[11] connected to Gdynia film festival and because the film was written by Andrzej Żuławski and directed by his son Xavery.

There’s a difference between movie as a goal and movie as a mean[12]. For Żulawski, the movie seems to be a mean – to end the narrative of him and his father, for example - but not only that. Xavery didn’t direct a feature film in 10 years, and Mowa Ptaków seems to be an opportunity he used. It is a personal film with contexts which can be fooly understood only if you know what’s happening in Poland. Though, if you are in Polish discources, you may not have watched any of Xavery or Andrzej’s films before and still be immersed into the story. There are references to Taxi Driver, Inception and Bollywood films at least – but they are not the main point, just some concepts which Żulawski wanted to direct for himself. Or, at least, it feels like it.

Some of the reviwers mentioned, that the film is about a person against a society[13], and that’s what they find to be a cliche. I would disagree and say that there’s a whole society against society, everyone against everyone, social group A vs social group B – and that’s thanks to the social bubble I've mentioned before. That becomes comedic when characters start barking with sounds of a real dog – one more mean of ironic exaggeration.

The Sick: Solid and Festival

II is sometimes named “young solid festival film”, as if it is something good. That’s one of the worst things a Belarusian movie can be called. Festival film is a film made by an enclosed group of people interested in making films, and given for other enclosed group of people to have a view. Festival is not about general audience, but about colleagues – filmmakers, film critics, people connected to the industry – and a bunch of cinephiles. In European festivals community, there’s the same social bubble connected to all major festivals. Here I'm not talking about small undeground experimental festivals like Unfiltered cinema in Belarus, I'm talking about a higher tier.

It’s wonderful that festivals exist – there filmmakers can exchange ideas, get to know each other more and just to have a good time watching each others movies. But if someone calles your movie “a film for a festival”, that’s a sign that either you or a person who’s saying this is missing the discourse.

I can see some purpouses for making festival films – but only if they are something like demo-reels to the creators, and nothing more. II is certainly not a film like this. It wants to be important and sincere, it wants to touch the viewer and to make him care – which partly works, but, once again, on a quite narrow audience.

Festival films or films which have a big chance of success at film festivals – are traditional (coming from European author cinema tradition) and socially-problematic. They focus on something which is important – but that doesn’t mean they hit the discourse. On the contrary, they quite often have a problem similar to II – their discourse is either unspecific and universal – or too specified and narrow, which also makes it harder for general audience to be interested[14].

Both II and Mowa Ptaków were screened in usual cinemas around Poland and Belarus – for a very limited period though. But now, you may only see Mowa Ptaków, and you can’t find II anywhere. Mowa Ptaków is online and you can watch it either for free (on cda) or with a Netflix subscription. At any time, on any screen.

Almost all Belarusian filmmakers, me included, struggle with getting their films on a big screen. But it may not always be the best option. Sometimes it’s just better to have your film avaliable online, for free, on-demand or on streaming platforms. They all will be enough, if the filmmakers hit the discourse which is needed at a certain time.

In so-called Cinema of a Discourse, artistic qualities of the film are on a second place. It’s much more important that an idea of a film should be understandable in a couple of words – and it should sound interesting to people outside your social bubble.

To be near a Cinema of Post-Discourse, the context of the story should be understandable the same way. But how to escape directors’ social bubble and to go outside possible echo-chambers?

The Spy: Structure For a Discourse

In Mowa Ptaków, one of the major characters is a schoolgirl who’s making a movie on her iphone about the Writer, the Historian and other characters. When she suddenly appears at a certain moment, still shooting a movie, Marian (the writer) calles her the Spy. In a relation to Mowa Ptaków itself, this voyerism[15] is much more active and inserted into a situation. The Spy is usually, despite what Marian calls her, close to her characters, not just looking from outside to their world, but, in a way, being an active participant. Both she and Żulawski use wide-angle lense and long takes, resembling somewhat a documentary style in many shots of the film.

Remember the question I've asked in the end of a previous point? Looking at the characters closer to the end of the film, they nearly escaped this bubble which I'm talking about. The team of characters may resemble many structures, but for the sake of this essay, let’s look at a film unit (zespół filmowy), a form of film production in Poland from the end of WWII till the end of 80-s. It may be interesting to look at because the rise of the Polish school of cinema is closely tied to a rise of film units. Polish school is, in my opinion, a Cinema of a Discourse. So, if Belarusian filmmakers want to hit the discourse there may be an option – to learn about how film units functioned, and to adapt some thigs to independent production culture.

According to the study Film Units: Restart[16] each film unit had an artistic director, a literary director, and a chief production manager recruited from a group of production managers. In each unit, there were both older and young, aspiring directors. ”Film units“ was an umbrella organisation which employed technicians. Being quite self-governed, small film units had a relatevely large creative freedom in authoritarian times. But still they were dependant on governmental money, and I am completely against governmental funding for filmmakers. So what can be learned from a film unit?

The Master: Critical Borrowing

Film units helped filmmakers to work in teams they would like to work with, but still, not to lose connection to the industry. A rotation and circulation, employing new people each time, was helping to spread ideas. Quite similar things were happening in Czechoslovakia and in Hungary. That’s one of the reasons why there were some really good periods for what i call a Cinema of a Discourse in all of those countries. In a structure like film unit, filmmakers can be both inside and outside their own social bubble, and, through all those connections, find relevant discources. It applies in a way not only to film units, but to all more or less influential film movements. After finding a relevant discource, the structure, the unit, the movement helped to find like-minded specialists. In a couple of decades, film units became a real opposition to regime’s ideology – because they made movies about what was in a real discource, not just the communist ideological one.

Why independant film productions in Belarus do not function in a similar way? At first, because there is not too much variety in it. There are less specialized technicians then there are directors. Then, because of a bubble created by Belarusian filmmakers themselves and because of abscence of rotation inside this bubble.

The whole Mowa Ptaków’s storyline goes from natural to unnatural, starting from documentary-like recordings in the school class, and driving to the end on a burning red reto-car, almost resembling B-movies of 80-s. Mowa Ptakow ends on a cemetary, where one of the characters is being buried. And suddenly, everyone starts dancing, as if it was a film from India. At some point, Marian stops the action and looks at his father, who also seems to be in a process of making the movie which Marian has stopped. Mowa Ptaków is of course a tribute to Andrzej Żuławski, but a critical one. The same way, we may learn something from what was before in film industries of different countries, but we should be critical about it.

For example, it is really difficult to create an independant organisation (or, better, multiple organisations) inside Belarus which may host different film units and which filmmakers should contact for getting a specific specialist.on their project. But in self-organising, filmmakers may use some examples of film units structure, pay attention both to artistic and literary, not forgetting of course about production management and connections to the industry and even wider.

Conclusion: Lessons From the Two Approaches

Both II and Mowa Ptaków are products of their contexts, but they work with discources differently and aim differently. II, being a well-made conventional film, wants to be successful on festivals, but also has local bohema talking about it. Mowa Ptaków, being experimental and political, arises controversy and touches the discourse with its own existance, while the storyline of the film is beyond different discources, sometimes making fun of them.

To get a story into a discourse, there should be a good understanding of what’s going on in a region where it’s taking place – but there may not always be a complicated analysis. To get the story over the discourse, there should be the same understanding, but the discourse and its problems should be put into a context and not being taken seriously. In both variants, it’s neccessary to be at the same time inside and outside social bubbles, it may be also good to see contexts from the outside of a region itself.

Screening in cinemas may be not a must for a modern filmmaker. It’s often a a good idea to put a film online, on streaming services at least. This may also earn independant filmmakers some money, while sometimes being easier than cooperating with cinemas.

There’s little use trying to make a festival movie. There are chances to miss both festivals and wide audiences, though it’s not the case of II or Mowa Ptaków. But film festivals themselves are important. They serve a social function in a film industry, and, if filmmakers are able to look outside that bubble of industry, it may work as a playground for ideas.

There’s something to learn from the history of Polish cinema. For Belarusian filmmakers, a useful thing may be to learn about a functioning of film units, about roles in them and why some of film units became successful. With independant medias and elements of a free market but still dependant studio system in today’s Belarus, many of what Polish filmmakers did at that time may, with a slice of crticism, be quite important to new generations of Belarusian filmmakers.

[1] from the description of Bird Talk on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/bird-talk/

[2] PiS kontroluje PKW. Ma realną władzę nad procesem wyborczym: https://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1939240,1,pis-kontroluje-pkw-ma-realna-wladze-nad-procesem-wyborczym.read?src=mt

[3] Kosz na głowie nauczyciela: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgIe4OfL-zo&t=11s

[4] Marsz Niepodległości 2019.Ratusz złożył zawiadomienie do prokuratury. Za nienawistne hasła i otwarty ogień: https://warszawa.wyborcza.pl/warszawa/7,54420,25431781,marsz-niepodleglosci-2019-ratusz-zlozyl-zawiadomienie-do-prokuratury.html

[5] Jacques Rivette. We Are Not Innocent Anymore. Bulletin intérieur du Cinéclub du Quartier Latin, January 1950 p. 16–23: http://sensesofcinema.com/2011/feature-articles/we-are-not-innocent-anymore/

[6] Attar. The Conference of the Birds https://archive.org/details/TheConferenceOfTheBirdsattar

[7] Aliszer Nawoi. Rozmowy ptaków: http://www.orient.jkrzyzowski.pl/index_files/Rozmowy_ebook.pdf

[8] Russian fairytale. Language of the Birds: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12851/12851-h/12851-h.htm#THE%20LANGUAGE%20OF%20THE%20BIRDS

[9] Christian Metz. Film Language. A Semiotics of Cinema: https://www.academia.edu/6352636/106296634-Metz-Film-Language-a-Semiotics-of-the-Cinema-PDF

[10] Настя Рогатко. Кино, которое нужно показывать во всех школах страны. Чем так хорош новый беларуский фильм «II» («Два»): https://kyky.org/cult/kino-kotoroe-nuzhno-pokazyvat-vo-vseh-shkolah-strany-chem-tak-horosh-novyy-belaruskiy-film-ii-dva

[11] "Mowa ptaków": wszystko, co trzeba wiedzieć o filmie Xawerego Żuławskiego: https://kultura.onet.pl/film/wiadomosci/mowa-ptakow-kontrowersje-fabula-informacje-premiera-zwiastun/gtmhsft

[12] Jean-Luc Godard.'Bergmanorama', Cahiers 85, July 1958: ”One is always along; on the set as before the blank page. And for Bergman, to be along means to ask questions. And to make films means to answer them”

[13] Drugi seans. MOWA PTAKÓW - RECENZJA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06r7YiVVPRs

[14] Compare with J. Rivette. Mizoguchi Viewed From Here: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/rivette/OK/mizoguchi.html
In the article, the director argues that Kurosawa’s films are adapted to a certain audience. Still, Kurosawa is more popular than Mizoguchi, even though ”Mizoguchi charms us because in the first place he makes no effort in charming us”.

[15] Laura Mulvey. Visual Plesure and Narrative Cinema: https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/mulvey-visualpleasure.pdf

[16] Marcin Adamczak. Chapter 1. Film units in the people’s Republic of Poland. Page 236 from the book Film Units: Restart


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