Americans are often so wrapped up in the kind of navelgazing prompted by our own entertainment industry that we forget how foreign countries are more than just markets to which we can ship our films for extra box office juice. The history, culture and politics of every nation has a powerful effect on how they react to cinema, and two stories in the Guardian illustrate the continuing ability of film to heal old wounds -- or open them up again.
Polish director Andrzej Wadja already had built up a stellar reputation, and at age 80, seemed likely for a future when he would simply be remembered as one of the last of a well-regarded generation of Polish filmmakers. Wadja, however, isn't ready to bow out gracefully, and indeed, has very likely made the film that will be remembered as his greatest. Katyn, which tells the story of the massacre of over 20,000 Polish soldiers slaughtered by Soviet troops in the eary days of the Second World War, has already been hailed as a great cinematic acheivement, scoring an Oscar nomination and heaps of praise for its skill, emotion and uncompromising approach wherever it's played; but for Wadja, it was more than just an artistic endeavor. His father was one of an astonishing eight thousand Polish officers killed at Katyn, with an eye towards permanently crippling Poland's military class in order to preemptively shatter resistance to Soviet rule. The massacre has been hugely controversial since it first happened; the Nazis exploited it in order to portray themselves as an acceptable alternative to the Russians, the Russians themselves attempted to blame it on the Nazis and obfuscated its details for decades; and the Americans and British helped cover it up in order to preserve their wartime alliance with Russia. All of which begs the question, will Katyn play in Russia? Andrzek Wadja vows that it will, saying that while he has yet to find a distrubutor there, "the film is not against the Russian people. It is about the horrors of the Stalin regime. It is enormously important for this film to be shown in Russia if Polish-Russian relations in the 21st century are to be based in truth, not lies."
Closer to the Guardian's home, visual artist, Turner Prize winner, and no-relation-to-the-Great-Escape-star Steve McQueen is debuting Hunger, his dramatization of the death of notorious IRA political prisoner Bobby Sands during a hunger strike. Although early reports are that it's well-acted (with 300's Michael Fassbender as Sands) and inventively directed, the production -- partially funded by Channel 4 -- is already drawing detractors from all sides, many of whom haven't had a chance to see the film. Some IRA members, like Richard O'Rawe, the organization's press officer at the time, worry that the film doesn't show Sands' struggle in a greater contrast (Sands was a dedicated liberal who wanted to see a socialist Ireland). Others, like Jeffrey Donaldson, an Ulster Unionist MP, decries the whole notion of making such a film about the IRA, worrying that it's little more than glorifying terrorism. While it seems likely that the film is going to draw criticism from all sides of the issue, McQueen says there's no better time than now to make the film: when he begane working on it "at the beginning of 2003 there was no Iraq War, no Guantanamo Bay, no Abu Ghraib prison, but as time's gone by the parallels have become apparent. History repeats itself, lots of people have short memories and we need to remember that these kinds of things have happened in Britain."
