Farewells (Pożegnania), viewed at the 2019 Yerevan film festival.

By Alex Deleon

In 1958 director Wojciech Has was only 32. years of age and Pożegnania (Farewells) was only his second feature after Pętla (The Noose) . Yet the film displays amazing maturity in the handling of the actors and everything else.  If Has can be seen as the Orson Welles of Polish cinema then Wajda is more like a Cecil B. Mille if a comparison is to be made between masters.

The flirtation scenes between Janczar and Wachowiak in the early part of the film are exquisite -- the  best I have ever seen in any language. Loaded with humor, tension, and social satire all at the same time and perfect,y orchestrated. The handling of all actors throughout is masterful as are the performances themselves.

The dialogues are so clever that I would now like to read the original novel by Dygat on which the film is based just to be able to linger on the lusciousness of the words.

Wachowiak, born 1938, was not yet twenty at the time of filming, yet displays a maturity and acting savvy far beyond her years. The B/w cinematography by Mięczysław Jahoda  is also exemplary. Typical of the 

pictorial brilliance of early postwar Polish cinema.

While this is a relatively small film that could have been expanded into an epic by including war scenes, the choice to omit them is artistically crucial. It is enough to know that between the first and second movements of this cinematic concerto Janczar suffered in Auschwitz without showing all that literally ~~ as if the War were a bad dream best forgotten.  Pożegnania remains a minor masterpiece and major landmark of Polish cinema that is as timely today as it ever was. And, needless to say, Maria Wachowiak is unforgettable. Then and now!