“White Courage” does something unique: it is not another Polish historical film in which mainly God-fatherland arguments are made, and everything serves to emphasize the courage of good patriots and the meanness of their enemies. It is a story about flesh and blood people who love, hate, want to live their own way, fight for what is most important to them, make difficult choices, suffer and support each other or fight each other. And this “big history” in the form of World War II, Nazis and communists forcefully invades their lives, but it does not eliminate the human aspect of the entire narrative.
“White Courage”. It’s not a historical film, it’s a film about people
The authors of the script are the award-winning director and cinematographer Marcin Koszałka, known for e.g. “I gave birth to such a beautiful son” and Łukasz M. Maciejewski, a trained historian who wrote scripts, among others. to “Najmro” or “King”, they rightly decided to start their story in such a way that the audience would see the characters of the film as people filled with true passions. Apart from the fact that “White Courage” opens, of course, with stunning shots of the mountains, we immediately see the brothers Jędrek (Filip Pławiak) and the older Maciek (Julian Świeżewski) and Bronka (Sandra Drzymalska) in the dancing scene. It’s just a fun show, but it’s obvious who has hot and reciprocated feelings for whom and who is jealous. It is emotional at the entrance, not to say melodramatic.
Because what does it matter if Jędrek loves Bronka and Bronka loves him, if her own father (Andrzej Konopka) definitely prefers that, as his eldest daughter, she should marry the more sedate and also the oldest among the siblings Maciek. The potential father-in-law protests, Bronka gets angry, Jędrek refuses, Maciek resists, and the mercantile Mr. Dad finds a way to force everyone to do things according to his vision. No one is satisfied with the solution, and Jędrek proposes to the chosen one of his heart to escape together. She “doesn’t want to breathe foreign air”, so he, embittered, goes to Krakow alone. There, he impresses the local bohemia with his mountaineering skills, and heals his broken heart in the arms of a talented artist, Helena (Wiktoria Gorodeckaja).
During the spectacular ascent to the top of St. Mary’s Church, our highlander meets Wolfram von Kamitz (), who is an avid mountaineer and researcher who believes in the idea that the Podhale highlanders are descendants of an ancient Germanic tribe. And so war and politics are interwoven into this love triangle and social melodrama. Jędrek becomes friends with Wolfram and climbs together, and at the same time convinces some of the highlanders to submit to von Kamitz’s racial tests and possibly enter them in the census as Germans – this is, in a word, an introduction to the drama.
The first half of the film looks like a thoroughbred melodrama in the best sense of the word. The feelings here are thrilling, the family and social context definitely prevails, and everything is beautifully acted. Without a hint of exaggeration or caricature, but with dedication and emotional credibility. After this introductory act, we move on to the more “historical” part, which actually focuses on the controversial topic of the creation of the “Goralenvolk”, the collaboration of individual people and the persecution of those who resist. A clever solution was to show the different attitudes of the highlander community through the characters of two brothers: Jędrek cooperates because he believes that this is the only way to defend himself against the Nazis, Maciek clearly opposes it and, despite the consequences, goes to war with the occupier.
Unfortunately, in the second act the pace slows down a bit and the atmosphere becomes even too thick and the whole thing resembles a very bloody Shakespearean drama. Of course, it would be difficult to show it otherwise, since history turned out this way. However, fatigue may occur. I also wonder why Helena, as a Jew, is somehow forgotten in the second half of the film. Jędrek locks her in the attic for her safety, while he goes to Krakow and walks in the mountains. Meanwhile, we don’t know what’s happening to her – her plot remains illustrative and it’s hard for me to understand why she would still love this highlander of hers. And then suddenly it turns out that her beloved remembered her after all and asks his friend to visit her. Well, it is inconsistent, but not fatal to the logic of the argument.
The best of “White Courage”: The cast and the cast again
I won’t deny that after watching “White Courage” I fell a little in love with Filip Pławiak, who had a wildly risky task here: he had to learn climbing from scratch, use the highlander dialect so that his ears wouldn’t wilt from forced artificiality, and on top of that his hero makes very controversial life choices. And yet it’s hard not to like his Jędrek, even if you don’t agree with his decisions. And the climbing scenes are more than impressive, I understand why the director often decided to show that the actor physically adapted to the role. I truly believe that a rascal can hold itself on a rock wall with one hand and it’s very impressive.
Regardless of the level of physical preparation, Pławiak dramatically created a multi-dimensional, credible and natural character. The viewer doesn’t even feel like he can understand the reasons behind his actions, he just does it. This is a rare art. But in this respect, Julian Świeżewski, Jakub Gierszał and Sandra Drzymalska are not inferior to Pławiak in their achievements. I was also honestly charmed by Wiktoria Gorodeckaja as Helna – there may be less of this character on screen than the others, but what charisma. The scene when she forces the Nazi to pour her a cup of tea and add sugar to it is beautiful. Very eloquent.
White Courage Adam Golec /monolith films promotional materials
Jakub Gierszał as the German is very convincing and it is even a bit disturbing. The actor plays his lines surprisingly naturally in German, which he speaks with a pleasant ease. This Wolfram of his is fascinated by making anthropological measurements and studying highlander communities, which somehow makes him oblivious to the decidedly inhumane effects of the actions of Nazi troops. He is the kind of idealistic enthusiast who abhors violence and is extremely elegant in interpersonal relationships. It’s easy to forget that they once included a line in his dialogues about Poles being enemies, because as a rule he tries to help Jędrek when his family comes into conflict with the occupation authorities. This is an interesting thread in the film that also makes you reflect on various topics.
Who cares about “White Courage”?
The Institute of National Remembrance distances itself from “White Courage” as much as it can. The Institute’s employees take great care to ensure that no one thinks that any of them had a hand in creating the script, which looks as if they still had to apologize to those who were apparently outraged by the production. In 2021, the former Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General accused the then Minister of Culture of by allocating money for production, his ministry “finances historic provocations of the left.”
– If we read that the Polish state is financing a film about the collaboration of some highlanders with the Germans during World War II, we ask whether it is financing a film about the participation of highlanders in the Underground State or about Tatra couriers? Is there a film being made about the children of the Zamość region? About the German camp for Polish children in Łódź? Finally: have you heard that Israel finances films about the Jewish police in the ghettos or about the Judenrats? This is just a fragment of the great tragedy of the Jewish nation, but it is also true – said the outraged man in an interview with Jacek and Michał Karnowski.
I would just like to remind you that during the “good change” term, “The Pilecki Report” was created for a mere $36 million, and was watched by 90,582 viewers in the three weeks after its premiere. Afterwards, the title does not appear in the website statistics
Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Institute of National Remembrance sends a message to the media in which he notes that an employee of the institution who was asked to consult in terms of historical correctness withdrew from cooperation due to inconsistencies in the corrected version of the script that concerned him. As a bonus, we also have a link to an article about: I have an irresistible impression that those who accuse “White Courage” of distorting history or tarnishing someone’s image even before the premiere should watch the production first. Because this is not a film that tells the story that all highlanders were bad, betrayed Poland and Poles, and at the same time collaborated with war criminals with open hands.
It is a film about the fact that the highlanders from Podhale feel (or can feel) first of all, a big family connected with a specific place and culture, with their small homeland. Some of the highlanders shown in the film actually join the “Goralenvolk”, and some definitely despise them for it, also despise the Nazis and try to sabotage this unfortunate collaboration or work underground. Words such as “shame” and “betrayal” fall out of their mouths. On the other hand, the viewer also has a well-explained perspective of Jędrek, who first sees what terrible things the Nazis are capable of and for a long time believes that only by cooperating with them “his people” will be safe. But he also spectacularly revises his views and atones for them. This film allows you to see different points of view and does not forcefully moralize. Here, everyone draws their own conclusions, sees how complex and multi-faceted the situation was and that it is just a fragment of what happened during the war in Podhale. I appreciate even more the invigorating approach of the creators of “White Courage”. In cinemas from March 8.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
