Holy Week: A Novel of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Afterword. Andrzej Wajda’s Film Holy Week

afterword ||| Andrzej Wajda’s Film Holy Week A n d r z e j W a j d a ’ s 1 9 9 5 f i l m Holy Week has an unusual position in Wajda’s total work for being an almost total box-of¤ce ¶op. Viewership in Poland during its run in cinemas was estimated at an astonishingly low eight thousand.1 Among its few awards was a special commendation at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival, presented not so much for the ¤lm itself as in connection with a lifetime achievement award for its maker. It is one of the few works by Poland’s Academy Award–winning director not to be currently available on VHS or DVD or distributed in larger format, either inside or outside Poland.2 Wajda had contemplated making this ¤lm since the early 1960s, possibly as a German-Polish coproduction, but for various reasons having to do with changing political currents, it was not possible to realize this project until the mid-1990s.3 As Paul Coates remarks, Andrzejewski’s Holy Week, for reasons of its length, language, and structure, seems virtually preordained for ¤lmic adaptation, much more so than his multilayered full-length novel Ashes and Diamonds, whose movie version went far toward establishing Wajda’s reputation in the West.4 Wajda enlisted a number of actors appearing on-screen for the ¤rst time, but the quality of the acting is high. The casting, period settings, and especially the photography are excellent. There are many trademark imaginistic Wajda touches. The plot unfolds suspensefully, leading to a rapid-¤re sequence of events culminating in a dramatic, even if well-mined, literary archetype: the scapegoating and forcible expulsion from a group of one member for being different (here, Jewish). Everything augured a successful cinematic run. What, then, was this ¤lm’s problem? As we know, the plot centers on the dilemma of a recently married Pole, Jan Malecki (played by Wojciech Malajkat), who has thrust upon him, at the You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. Jan Malecki (Wojciech Malajkat). Photo courtesy of Andrzej Wajda Irena Lilien (Beata Fudalej). Photo courtesy of Andrzej Wajda You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. Anna Malecka (Magdalena Warzecha). Photo courtesy of Andrzej Wajda Julek Malecki (Jakub Przebindowski). Photo courtesy of Andrzej Wajda You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. Piotrowska (Barbara Dykiel). Photo courtesy of Andrzej Wajda Piotrowski (Cezary Pazura). Photo courtesy of Andrzej Wajda You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. Afterword | 131 height of the ¤nal Nazi Jewish extermination campaign and the ensuing Warsaw Ghetto uprising during Holy Week 1943, the decision whether to shelter a Jewish woman acquaintance of his, Irena Lilien (played by Beata Fudalej). Personal considerations begin to color the decisions of Malecki, as he both worries about the safety of his family (his wife Anna, played by Magdalena Warzecha, is pregnant) and at the same time feels increasingly estranged from the woman with whom he had once been close, whom he had even courted. Irena, for her part, has been changed and embittered by the traumas of her wartime experiences, to the point where Malecki barely recognizes in her the person he once knew. Once her presence in the small apartment building becomes known to the bottom-dwelling tenant Mrs. Piotrowski (Barbara Dykiel) and her lascivious husband (Cezary Pazura), Irena’s expulsion is only a matter of time. In many ways Holy Week is a classic Wajda piece, situated during World War II, when the fate of the nation, and that of many individuals, was hanging in the balance. Themes of patriotism, heroism, and martyrdom are cast against a backdrop of often dubious characters, questionable decisions, moral incertitudes, and interventions of...