Afterimage

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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Poland’s most renowned painter Wladyslaw Strzeminski was also an avant-garde theorist. He formulated Unism, an artistic way of analyzing form in painting. And he wrote a revolutionary book titled “The Theory of Vision.” He served as instructor at the Higher School of Plastic Arts in Lodz. And he designed the Neoplastic Room at Muzeum Sztuki.

Unfortunately, Strzeminski’s view of art — that it is “an individual way of seeing rather than rote reproduction of a collectively agreed-upon reality” — conflicted with Stalin’s rule. Socialist realism was the only officially sanctioned style of painting. Abstract art was denounced as Western decadence.

As a result, Strzeminski was fired from his teaching job. His famous Neoplastic Room was removed from the Lodz museum and his thesis art show was destroyed. After being discredited as an artist, he could no longer get work or food. He was told that under Communism “those who don’t work don’t eat.”

“Afterimage” — an upcoming entry in Tropic’s Cinematheque Series — is a biopic about Wladyslaw Strzeminski. As told by the late Polish director Andrzej Wajda, the story offers a “grim, clear-eyed look at the predations of Stalinism.”

Set in 1948, we find that 60-year-old Strzeminki (played by Boguslaw Linda) is a cripple, missing an arm and a leg from injuries in World War I. We watch as he hops about on a crutch, a cigarette dangling from his lips, unable to staunch his artistic downfall. Like his missing limbs, his career is being lopped away piece by piece.

The opposite of a success story, the film traces an arc from fame to obscurity. Despite the artist’s predilection for vivid colors, the images on the screen fade to the dull gray palette of a repressive era. 

“Afterimage” is the last film of Andrzej Wajda. Unlike Polish filmmakers Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski who did much of their work in the West, Wajda spent his entire career in Poland, making films (“The Promised Land,” “The Maids of Wilko,” “Man of Iron”) that examined that country’s history and mores.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com