OF HUMAN BONDAGE
WHEN PIOTR SZULKIN DIED LAST SUMMER, he was still fondly remembered as one of Polish cinema’s most unique voices for his spirited social satires in the guises of science fiction and horror, such as The War of the Worlds: Next Century (1981) and O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985). Szulkin’s reputation has persisted despite the fact that he hadn’t made a new feature in over 15 years at the time of his death. Born in the aftermath of World War II, he had thrived in the ’70s and ’80s, but times had gotten harder and harder for most of Poland’s old guard by the 2000s. While the Wajdas, Zanussis, and Machulskis knew how to navigate the political rapids of whatever form the post-Communist country was taking at the moment, oddballs like Szulkin had trouble finding financing in a new capitalist world that was as obsessed with forgetting the past as with supplying a (festival) market that prized youth and debuts.
It’s telling that Szulkin’s second-to-last fiction feature— (1991), a Buñuel-esque melodrama with baffling Żuławskian undertones—was made in 1989-90, the end of People’s Poland. The Communists had less of a problem with a pesky, politically caustic visionary than, are not specific to State Socialist countries, as history has continued to make apparent.
