email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

Competition - "Pornography"

by 

- Death and lust come face to face in German-occupied Poland and the director tries his hand at one of Poland's most respected texts

Jan Jakub Kolski’s new film, Pornography [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
screened yesterday in competition at the Venice Film Festival. The name and driving concept for this film were generated by Witold Gombrowicz’s eponymous 1960 novel, which also has the distinction of being one of the most complicated books of contemporary Polish literature.
The lust experienced by two middle-aged men becomes an homicidal orgy with a number of unexpected emotional results. These events unfold in Nazi-occupied Poland, a country brought to her knees by inhuman Teutonic savagery.
The “pornography” referred to in the title is a drama of the mind that gradually builds up steam to explode in the violence of the finale, that portrays the horrifying lower limits that a desperate human is capable of reaching.
The film is a masterful blend of wonderful photography (the film was shot on DV, with contrasts highlighted and the pastels rendered opaque in post-production) that never forgets its literary origins, even if Kolski allowed himself some room to manoeuvre.
“It took me a year to make this film. I mixed the concepts common to romantic Polish cinema with my ideas and the shocking spirit of the original book with me, the director,” said Kolski. “Over the years I’ve written a good number of screenplays but this is the first one that I’ve bought to fruition. When I was asked to make Pornography I accepted on condition that I could introduce subjects of interest to me into the story.”
Pornography is a Polish-French co-production by Heritage Films and Mact Productions with Films Distribution handling international sales.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)
(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from Italian)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy