This film by Andrzej Wajda is based on the play "The Wedding" written around y. 1900 by Stanislaw Wyspianski. Wyspianski, a playwright, poet, painter, sculptor, architect, designer and a bit of an eccentric, arguably reached his creative peak in "The Wedding". A real event - the marriage of an upper class poet to a peasant girl in a village near Cracow, Poland - enabled Wyspianski, who actually witnessed the wedding as a guest, to mix current social commentary and a bit of satire with some seriously visionary (what with all the absinthe) musings on Polish troubled past and present. The play is superb in conveying the diverse language of the characters, who range from artistic and bourgeois friends of the bridegroom to the local country folk speaking in a thick but vibrant dialect.
The whole plot is set during a single night in the peasant house where the wedding takes place. It is happening on two connected planes: on one hand, realistic dancing, drinking and socializing, where the culture clash between different circles of guests allows for interesting observations, on another hand, symbolic encounters of individual guests with the ghosts that come to haunt them. The ghosts - mostly significant figures from Poland's history and culture - can be understood as personifications of ideas, in line with the symbolist trends of the period, or simply as drunken hallucinations of the guests.
Gradually, the plot takes the direction towards setting up an armed uprising against Poland's oppressors. The upper class (nobility) is supposed to lead and the peasantry is supposed to contribute muscle. One of the ghosts even provides the magical golden bugle to be used for the decisive call to arms at dawn. However, as the dawn comes, it turns out that the upper class failed to take the lead and all they're battling is their own hangovers, and the golden bugle got lost because of the selfishness and clumsiness of the peasants. Instead of the uprising, the plot ends with "cursed", stupefying dancing.
Faced with the task of transferring all this to the language of film, Andrzej Wajda chose the path of pronounced material realism. The wedding room is confined and stuffy, the dance music played by actual folklore musicians is blaring all the time and at times drowns the dialogue, the acting and costumes are all very realistic. This provides for an interesting clash with the theatrical structure of the play. On the other hand, the camera work is very dynamic and at times disjointed, which quite convincingly represents the state of drunkenness common to country weddings like this.
In my opinion, this film works best for people familiar with the original text, which means it may be not so impressive for international audiences. However, for all the art-house buffs out there it should be interesting enough to have a look. Certainly one of the high points in the work of Andrzej Wajda, the celebrated, if slightly overrated, maestro of Polish cinema.
The whole plot is set during a single night in the peasant house where the wedding takes place. It is happening on two connected planes: on one hand, realistic dancing, drinking and socializing, where the culture clash between different circles of guests allows for interesting observations, on another hand, symbolic encounters of individual guests with the ghosts that come to haunt them. The ghosts - mostly significant figures from Poland's history and culture - can be understood as personifications of ideas, in line with the symbolist trends of the period, or simply as drunken hallucinations of the guests.
Gradually, the plot takes the direction towards setting up an armed uprising against Poland's oppressors. The upper class (nobility) is supposed to lead and the peasantry is supposed to contribute muscle. One of the ghosts even provides the magical golden bugle to be used for the decisive call to arms at dawn. However, as the dawn comes, it turns out that the upper class failed to take the lead and all they're battling is their own hangovers, and the golden bugle got lost because of the selfishness and clumsiness of the peasants. Instead of the uprising, the plot ends with "cursed", stupefying dancing.
Faced with the task of transferring all this to the language of film, Andrzej Wajda chose the path of pronounced material realism. The wedding room is confined and stuffy, the dance music played by actual folklore musicians is blaring all the time and at times drowns the dialogue, the acting and costumes are all very realistic. This provides for an interesting clash with the theatrical structure of the play. On the other hand, the camera work is very dynamic and at times disjointed, which quite convincingly represents the state of drunkenness common to country weddings like this.
In my opinion, this film works best for people familiar with the original text, which means it may be not so impressive for international audiences. However, for all the art-house buffs out there it should be interesting enough to have a look. Certainly one of the high points in the work of Andrzej Wajda, the celebrated, if slightly overrated, maestro of Polish cinema.
