Kolejarskie słowo

Running time: 21'

Kolejarskie słowo / A Railwayman's Word
Production: POL 1953

Although this film seemingly fits the formula of socialist Poland's “production reportage,” it is actually a breakthrough in Andrzej Munk's documentary work. The quasi-feature film structure of the film is based on the task set before the crew of the coal train from Silesia to the steel mill in Szczecin, but also before other railwaymen assisting in the train's long route. The fight to carry out the plan, which is a typical topic for socialist realism cinema, was pictured by the filmmakers in a way which escapes the formula typical of those days. It is the people responsible for the task who are the most important here – their work ethic.

 

 

 

Authors:

  • Andrzej Munk

    The figure and work of Andrzej Munk (1921-1961) is enshrouded in legend, the sources of which can be found in his untimely, tragic death, but most importantly in the belief that the creative output he left behind, and what he did not manage to do, hides a secret. This belief is based on experience coming from the encounters with the films he signed, and on the feeling that his sudden departure terminated an important movement in the history of Polish film – a movement which was separate, with no spiritually equivalent followers or successors. Going back to Andrzej Munk's four feature films (Man on the tracks, 1957, Eroica, 1958, Bad luck, 1959, Passenger, premiere 1963 – film finished by Witold Lesiewicz) confirms their intellectual openness. Time – the unrelenting auditor of value – did not upend or obliterate the importance of these films in the output of Polish culture. In his most important works Munk turned out to be an artist whose dialogue with the recipient lost nothing of its conceptual, social, and moral topicality. Original and entangled in tradition, modern for his generation, and universal in his historiosophic and ethical reflections, Andrzej Munk is an artist whose works are important because the discourse they hold – about the freedom of the individual, about responsibility and dignity – never loses its topicality.

    Flmography:

    Stracone złudzenia (student film, camera [DP]): 1948, production PWSF Łódź
    Pielęgniarki (student film, camera [DP]): 1948, production PWSF
    Art of The Young (student film, camera [DP]): 1949, production PWSF
    It Began in Spain: 1950, production WFD in Warsaw
    Science Closer to Life: 1951, production WFD
    Destination Nowa Huta: 1951, production WFD
    The Fairy Tale: 1952, production WFD
    Peasant Diaries: 1952, production WFD
    A Railwayman's Word: 1956, production WFD
    Stars Must Be Alight: 1954, production WFD
    One Sunday Morning: 1955, production WFD
    The Men of the Blue Cross: 1955, production WFD
    Man on the tracks: 1956, production WFF in Łódź
    Eroica: 1957, production WFF i WFD
    A Walk in the Old City of Warsaw: 1958, production WFD
    Bad luck: 1959, production WFF
    Polish Film Chronicle: 1959, no. 52 – A-B, production WFD
    Passenger: 1961-63, production WFF

    TV productions (lost):
    Ksawery Pruszynski's Wieczory generalskie: 1959, production TVP
    Terence Rattigan's Harlequinade: 1959, production TVP
    Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka's Passenger: 1960, production TVP

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Screenings: