European Films

The opening scene from the new film of Polish director Jacek Filipiak called Zerwany (Torn) is so bleak in tone and contains such strong imagery -- the strongest being a prolonged close-up shot of a boy’s mouth violently stuffed with dumplings made by his foster mother that he has refused to eat -- that it functions both as a preview of what is to come as well as a warning: this film is not going to be easy to watch. The forceful imagery will remain throughout the film, though the first half is much weakened by unnecessary scenes set at an orphanage to which the boy is sent by his foster parents. When the boy fails to integrate there, escapes and is dumped by the police in a correctional facility for young delinquents, the film’s story and character study come into clearer focus, though the violence remains.

The boy is called Tadeusz and he is played by young thespian Krzysztof Ciupa with an intensity that is unusual for someone of his age. Little Tadeusz longs to be with his mother and dreams to be a sports commentator when he grows up; neither of these things seem to in reach however, as he is forced from foster family to orphanage to correctional facility. Life in these places is harsh and the animalistic laws of the jungle rule there: eat or be eaten. There are only a few favours the caretakers can extend and everyone wants not one but all of them.

 

Violence in all its forms is part of the daily menu in an ongoing struggle for supremacy between the children and the adolescents. At the orphanage, Tadeusz is picked on by the children of his own age and things get worse at the correctional facility, where he is the youngest. Tadeusz perseveres and adapts himself, earning a little respect for the intelligence shown in class and even becoming friendly with some of his fellow delinquents, if only between one fight and another.

Filipiak’s story meanders for the first half of the film, where Tadeusz is up against everyone else, but gains greater focus in the second half, when more attention is given to the people that surround him. What remains throughout the film is Filipiak’s use of carefully composed imagery that is very powerful and often disturbing. At the orphanage we have a scene, lit only by flashlights, where the children frighten each other in the dark with stories of "bloody Henrik". The scene does not add much in terms of narrative, but it is carefully composed, lit and shot and contributes to the idea that fear rather than comeraderie is what the youngsters know and what binds them. A fight in the showers on Tadeusz’s first day at the correctional facility shows the same preparation but works even better because it is an inherent part of the narrative. Quieter scenes showing the little boy in the forest are of equal lasting power, because they provide both an escape for Tadeusz as well as some much needed room to breathe for the audience.

The film’s final shot is again carefully thought through in terms of composition, lightening and mise-en-scene and the shot has a calculated dual meaning in representing both Tadeusz’s liberty and his further imprisonment in what could be an even more violent environment than the places he has staid in before: the real world. Zerwany pulls no punches about the toughness of reality for an orphaned boy in Poland, but the makers' exquisite sense of imagery elevates it to the level of a visual meditation that is both disturbing and incongruently beautiful to look at.

 

This film was shown as part of the 2005 edition of the Film Festival du Film in Brussels.

 

Browse: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, dvdGO.es, internetbookshop.it, nl.bol.com, allposters.com.