In 1961, Stanislaw Rozewicz created the novella film "Birth Certificate" in cooperation with his brother, Taduesz Rozewicz as screenwriter. Such brother tandems are rare in the history of film but aside from family ties, Stanislaw (born in 1924) and Taduesz (born in 1921) were mutually bound by their love for the cinema. They were born and grew up in Radomsk, a small town which had "its madmen and its saints" and most importanly, the "Kinema" cinema, as Stanislaw recalls: for him cinema is "heaven, the whole world, enchantment". Tadeusz says he considers cinema both a charming market stall and a mysterious temple. "All this savage land has always attracted and fascinated me," he says. "I am devoured by cinema and I devour cinema; I'm a cinema eater." But Taduesz Rozewicz, an eminent writer, admits this unique form of cooperation was a problem to him: "It is the presence of the other person not only in the process of writing, but at its very core, which is inserperable for me from absolute solitude." Some scenes the brothers wrote together; others were created by the writer himself, following discussions with the director. But from the perspective of time, it is "Birth Certificate", rather than "Echo" or "The Wicked Gate", that Taduesz describes as his most intimate film. This is understandable. The tradgey from September 1939 in Poland was for the Rozewicz brothers their personal "birth certificate". When working on the film, the director said "This time it is all about shaking off, getting rid of the psychological burden which the war was for all of us. ... Cooperation with my brother was in this case easier, as we share many war memories. We wanted to show to adult viewers a picture of war as seen by a child. ... In reality, it is the adults who created the real world of massacres. Children beheld the horrors coming back to life, exhumed from underneath the ground, overwhelming the earth."
The principle of composition of "Birth Certificate" is not obvious. When watching a novella film, we tend to think in terms of traditional theatre. We expect that a miniature story will finish with a sharp point; the three film novellas in Rozewicz's work lack this feature. We do not know what will be happen to the boy making his alone through the forest towards the end of "On the Road". We do not know whether in "Letter from the Camp", the help offered by the small heroes to a Soviet prisoner will rescue him from the unknown fate of his compatriots. The fate of the Jewish girl from "Drop of Blood" is also unclear. Will she keep her new impersonation as "Marysia Malinowska"? Or will the Nazis make her into a representative of the "Nordic race"? Those questions were asked by the director for a reason. He preceived war as chaos and perdition, and not as linear history that could be reflected in a plot. Although "Birth Certificate" is saturated with moral content, it does not aim to be a morality play. But with the immense pressure of reality, no varient of fate should be excluded. This approached can be compared wth Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blind Chance" 25 years later, which pictured dramatic choices of a different era.
The film novella "On the Road" has a very sparing plot, but it drew special attention of the reviewers. The ominating overtone of the war films created by the Polish Film School at that time should be kept in mind. Mainly owing to Wajda, those films dealt with romantic heritage. They were permeated with pathos, bitterness, and irony. Rozewicz is an extraordinary artist. When narrating a story about a boy lost in a war zone, carrying some documents from the regiment office as if they were a treasure, the narrator in "On the Road" discovers rough prose where one should find poetry. And suddenly, the irrational touches this rather tame world. The boy, who until that moment resembled a Polish version of the Good Soldier Schweik, sets off, like Don Quixote, for his first and last battle. A critic described it as "an absurd gesture and someone else could surely use it to criticise the Polish style of dying. ... But the Rozewicz brothers do no accuse: they only compose an elegy for the picturesque peasant-soldier, probably the most important veteran of the Polish war of 1939-1945." "Birth Certificate" is not a lofty statement about national imponderabilia. The film reveals a plebeian perspective which Aleksander Jackieqicz once contrasted with those "lyrical lamentations" inherent in the Kordian tradition. However, a historical overview of Rozewicz's work shows that the distinctive style does not signify a fundamental difference in illustrating the Polish September. Just as the memorable scene from Wajda's "Lotna" was in fact an expression of desperation and distress, the same emotions permeate the final scene of "Birth Certificate". These are not ideological concepts, though once described as such and fervently debated, but rather psychological creations. In this specific case, observes Witold Zalewski, it is not about manifesting knightly pride, but about a gesture of a simple man who does not agree to be enslaved.
The novella "Drop of Blood" is, with Aleksander Ford's "Border Street", one of the first narrations of the fate of the Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. The story about a girl literally looking for her place on earth has a dramatic dimension. Especially in the age of today's journalistic disputes, often manipulative, lacking in empathy and imbued with bad will, Rozewicz's story from the past shocks with its authenticity. The small herione of the story is the only one who survives a German raid on her family home. Physical survial does not, however, mean a return to normality. Her frightened departure from the rubbish dump that was her hideout lead her to a ruined apartment. Her walk around it is painful because still fresh signs of life are mixed with evidence of annihilation. Help is needed, but Mirka does not know anyone in the outside world. Her subsequent attempts express the state of the fugitive's spirits - from hope and faith, moving to doubt, a sense of oppression, and thickening fear, and finally to despair.
At the same time, the Jewish girl's search for refuge resembles the state of Polish society. The appearance of Mirka results in confusion, and later, trouble. This was already signalled by Rozewicz in an exceptional scene from "Letter from the Camp" in which the boy's neighbour, seeing a fugitive Russian soldier, retreats immediately, admitting that "Now, people worry only about themselves." Such embarassing excuses mask fear. During the occupation, no one feels safe. Neither social status not the aegis of a charity organisation protects against repression. We see the potential guardians of Mirka passing her back and forth among themselves. These are friendly hands but they cannot offer strong support. The story takes place on that thin line between solidarity and heroism. Solidarity arises spontaneously, but only some are capable of heroism. Help for the girl does not always result from compassion; sometimes it is based on past relations and personal ties (a neighbour of the doctor takes in the fugitive for a few days because of past friendship). Rozewicz portrays all of this in a subtle way; even the smallest gesture has significance. Take, for example, the conversation with a stranger on the train: short, as if jotted down on the margin, but so full of tension. And earlier, a peculiar examination of Polishness: the "Holy Father" prayer forced on Mirka by the village boys to check that she is not a Jew. Would not rising to the challenge mean a death sentance?
Viewed after many years, "Birth Certificate" discloses yet another quality that is not present in the works of the Polish School, but is prominent in later B-class war films. This is the picture of everyday life during the war and occupation outlined in the three novellas. It harmonises with the logic of speaking about "life after life". Small heroes of Rozewicz suddenly enter the reality of war, with no experience or scale with which to compare it. For them, the present is a natural extension of and at the same time a complete negation of the past. Consider the sleey small-town marketplace, through which armoured columns will shortly pass. Or meet the German motorcyclists, who look like aliens from outer space - a picture taken from an autopsy because this is how Stanislaw and Taduesz perceived the first Germans they ever met. Note the blurred silhouettes of people against a white wall who are being shot - at first they are shocking, but soon they will probably become a part of the grim landscape. In the city centre stands a prisoner camp on a sodden bog ("People perish likes flies; the bodies are transported during the night"); in the street the childern are running after a coal wagon to collect some precious pieces of fuel. There's a bustle around some food (a boy reproaches his younger brother's actions by singing: "The warrant officer's son is begging in front of the church? I'm going to tell mother!"); and the kitchen, which one evening becomes the proscenium of a real drama. And there are the symbols: a bar of chocolate forced upon a boy by a Wehrmacht soldier ("On the Road"); a pair of shoes belonging to Zbyszek's father which the boy spontaneously gives to a Russian fugitive; a priceless slice of bread, ground under the heel of a policeman in the guter ("Letters from the Camp"). As the director put it: "In every film, I communicate my own vision of the world and of the people. Only then the style follows, the defined way of experiencing things." In Birth Certificate, he adds, his approach was driven by the subject: "I attempted to create not only the texture of the document but also to add some poetic element. I know it is risky but as for the merger of documentation and poety, often hidden very deep, if only it manages to make its way onto the screen, it results in what can referred to as 'art'."
After 1945, there were numerous films created in Europe that dealt with war and children, including "Somewhere in Europe" ("Valahol Europaban", 1947 by Geza Radvanyi), "Shoeshine" ("Sciescia", 1946 by Vittorio de Sica), and "Childhood of Ivan" ("Iwanowo dietstwo" by Andriej Tarkowski). Yet there were fewer than one would expect. Pursuing a subject so imbued with sentimentalism requires stylistic disipline and a special ability to manage child actors. The author of "Birth Certificate" mastered both - and it was not by chance. Stanislaw Rozewicz was always the beneficent spirit of the film milieu; he could unite people around a common goal. He emanated peace and sensitivity, which flowed to his co-workers and pupils. A film, being a group work, necessitates some form of empathy - tuning in with others.
In a biographical documentary about Stanislaw Rozewicz entitled "Walking, Meeting" (1999 by Antoni Krauze), there is a beautiful scene when the director, after a few decades, meets Beata Barszczewska, who plays Mireczka in the novella "Drops of Blood". The woman falls into the arms of the elderly man. They are both moved. He wonders how many years have passed. She answers: "A few years. Not too many." And Rozewicz, with his characteristic smile says: "It is true. We spent this entire time together."
简简单单，温温暖暖。
起初有点失去耐心，但故事慢慢变得治愈。一大一小，互相治愈，甚至互相照顾。像是朋友的亲情。
2022年4月27日，The Projector。看得挺感动的，就大都市生活人与人之间还是需要相互理解。以及即使不是熊孩子但生养下一代的精神消耗还是巨大的。
孩子难带但可爱，如同光明的未来难以孕育，但总要有点手拉手的信念。
虽然没有旁白，但片中读的那些书、做的那些访谈、录的那些环境音（所谓“使不朽”）、日记性质的自述、平添忧郁的黑白画面，都让人想起泰伦斯·马利克式的（故作）深沉。片中所有受访者都是真实出镜即兴发挥（包括一个后来被枪杀的叫布莱恩特的黑人小男孩），这倒挺适合方法派的华金·菲尼克斯。不知道这种亦幻亦真的骚操作是不是受了去年《无依之地》的启发。
不错但没那么好。拍的不够亲切，但这些生活治愈的小故事需要更强的亲切感。有点疏离，会让我不够专心。
3.5，一碗来自a24的温馨鸡汤。没有教不好的小朋友，只有不愿用心教育的家长。原先在摄影机/录音设备后负责纪录的“影人”反客为主，成为了叙事的主体，这个想法挺有意思的。可能是之前太迷《小丑》了，现在只要看到杰昆一抱双臂，一做鬼脸，就觉得他还在演Arthur…
“我不会记得吗？” “我希望你记得。我会提醒你的。”
什么是normal？对于孩子的问题的理解是对于自身的成长的回忆，互相的提醒，互相的成就。
7 迫使你不断思考，不纠结于场景，集中于对话和人物。
2. 我们总是对母亲苛刻的，就好像主人公妹妹对孩子和爱人戏精和妄想症或者神经病那么宽容……对母亲也还是不行
你会在这里看到很多丑恶的事情，但是这里也很美，虽然你可能会遇到方方面面的问题，但是你也会看到一些善良的人，有着金子般的心，虽然他们不认识你。
补，喜欢在评论里看到的一句：这是一部能让人变得柔软的电影。
好久没看黑白片了，摄影很棒，穿越过四个风格各异的美国城市，这样的色调也不会喧宾夺主。需要跟影像和时间一起放慢下来去体验这两位主角之间的bonding，孩子对世界的思考，成年人的焦虑。Over the years, you will try to make sense of that happy, sad, full, empty, always-shifting life you're in.
这种慢慢慢慢风格放在英文电影上感觉总有点奇怪
这个时代下，孩子成熟坚强得像个大人，大人们脆弱崩溃得像个孩子，孩子们对未来的世界充满了悲观与不确定，但仿佛已经做好了心理建设，大人们回首过去的种种痛苦，只会哑然一笑，明白这也是孩子们的必经之路。刻意的选择了美国东西南北四座代表性的城市后，最终我们还是一起在大自然中肆意放声呐喊。be funny, comma, when you can, period. （还有，很久不见非常非常赞的黑白摄影。）
黑白，诗意。我们是否也应该被孩子们教育呢？不知道，因为我们从未倾听过。影片缺点就是太平淡，小孩任性引起不适了。总之谈不上喜欢。
太细腻了. 太喜欢了. 拿捏的真好. Felix和小男孩演的真好. 女主演的也挺好的.
4.5 叔侄间的城市之旅，随着叔叔对各年龄各种族的未成年人采访的深入，叔侄间的关系也在加深，他们逐渐吐露自我，了解对方。不仅是他们俩的互相了解，也是他们对共同亲人的更深一步了解，在他们之间的日常相处中也会了解到他们共同亲人不为他们所知的一面。他们每日都流走在城市街道间，每到一处地方他们都会对眼前的事物评头论足一番。这些碎碎念好似一首首关于那些城市的城市之诗、街头之诗。全片偏灰的黑白色调也使关于那些城市的第一印象都趋于相同，不管是阳光之城洛杉矶还是冰冷大都市纽约都只是黑白灰。
论单身男人如何心平气和的带问题过多的孩子。
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