p 　　In 一九六一, Stanislaw Rozewicz created the novella film quot Birth Certificate quot in cooperation with his brother, Taduesz Rozewicz as screenwriter Such brother tandems are rare in the history of film but aside from family ties, Stanislaw born in 一九二四 and Taduesz born in 一九二一 were mutually bound by their love for the cinema They were born and grew up in Radomsk, a small town which had quot its madmen and its saints quot and most importanly, the quot Kinema quot cinema, as Stanislaw recalls: for him cinema is quot heaven, the whole world, enchantment quot Tadeusz says he considers cinema both a charming market stall and a mysterious temple quot All this savage land has always attracted and fascinated me, quot he says quot I am devoured by cinema and I devour cinema I 三九 m a cinema eater quot But Taduesz Rozewicz, an eminent writer, admits this unique form of cooperation was a problem to him: quot It is the presence of the other person not only in the process of writing, but at its very core, which is inserperable for me from absolute solitude quot Some scenes the brothers wrote together others were created by the writer himself, following discussions with the director But from the perspective of time, it is quot Birth Certificate quot , rather than quot Echo quot or quot The Wicked Gate quot , that Taduesz describes as his most intimate film This is understandable The tradgey from September 一九三九 in Poland was for the Rozewicz brothers their personal quot birth certificate quot When working on the film, the director said quot This time it is all about shaking off, getting rid of the psychological burden which the war was for all of us Cooperation with my brother was in this case easier, as we share many war memories We wanted to show to adult viewers a picture of war as seen by a child In reality, it is the adults who created the real world of massacres Children beheld the horrors coming back to life, exhumed from underneath the ground, overwhelming the earth quot br 　　The principle of composition of quot Birth Certificate quot is not obvious When watching a novella film, we tend to think in terms of traditional theatre We expect that a miniature story will finish with a sharp point the three film novellas in Rozewicz 三九 s work lack this feature We do not know what will be happen to the boy making his alone through the forest towards the end of quot On the Road quot We do not know whether in quot Letter from the Camp quot , the help offered by the small heroes to a Soviet prisoner will rescue him from the unknown fate of his compatriots The fate of the Jewish girl from quot Drop of Blood quot is also unclear Will she keep her new impersonation as quot Marysia Malinowska quot Or will the Nazis make her into a representative of the quot Nordic race quot Those questions were asked by the director for a reason He preceived war as chaos and perdition, and not as linear history that could be reflected in a plot Although quot Birth Certificate quot is saturated with moral content, it does not aim to be a morality play But with the immense pressure of reality, no varient of fate should be excluded This approached can be compared wth Krzysztof Kieslowski 三九 s quot Blind Chance quot 二五 years later, which pictured dramatic choices of a different era br 　　The film novella quot On the Road quot has a very sparing plot, but it drew special attention of the reviewers The ominating overtone of the war films created by the Polish Film School at that time should be kept in mind Mainly owing to Wajda, those films dealt with romantic heritage They were permeated with pathos, bitterness, and irony Rozewicz is an extraordinary artist When narrating a story about a boy lost in a war zone, carrying some documents from the regiment office as if they were a treasure, the narrator in quot On the Road quot discovers rough prose where one should find poetry And suddenly, the irrational touches this rather tame world The boy, who until that moment resembled a Polish version of the Good Soldier Schweik, sets off, like Don Quixote, for his first and last battle A critic described it as quot an absurd gesture and someone else could surely use it to criticise the Polish style of dying But the Rozewicz brothers do no accuse: they only compose an elegy for the picturesque peasant-soldier, probably the most important veteran of the Polish war of 一九三九-一九四五 quot quot Birth Certificate quot is not a lofty statement about national imponderabilia The film reveals a plebeian perspective which Aleksander Jackieqicz once contrasted with those quot lyrical lamentations quot inherent in the Kordian tradition However, a historical overview of Rozewicz 三九 s work shows that the distinctive style does not signify a fundamental difference in illustrating the Polish September Just as the memorable scene from Wajda 三九 s quot Lotna quot was in fact an expression of desperation and distress, the same emotions permeate the final scene of quot Birth Certificate quot These are not ideological concepts, though once described as such and fervently debated, but rather psychological creations In this specific case, observes Witold Zalewski, it is not about manifesting knightly pride, but about a gesture of a simple man who does not agree to be enslaved br 　　The novella quot Drop of Blood quot is, with Aleksander Ford 三九 s quot Border Street quot , one of the first narrations of the fate of the Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation The story about a girl literally looking for her place on earth has a dramatic dimension Especially in the age of today 三九 s journalistic disputes, often manipulative, lacking in empathy and imbued with bad will, Rozewicz 三九 s story from the past shocks with its authenticity The small herione of the story is the only one who survives a German raid on her family home Physical survial does not, however, mean a return to normality Her frightened departure from the rubbish dump that was her hideout lead her to a ruined apartment Her walk around it is painful because still fresh signs of life are mixed with evidence of annihilation Help is needed, but Mirka does not know anyone in the outside world Her subsequent attempts express the state of the fugitive 三九 s spirits - from hope and faith, moving to doubt, a sense of oppression, and thickening fear, and finally to despair br 　　At the same time, the Jewish girl 三九 s search for refuge resembles the state of Polish society The appearance of Mirka results in confusion, and later, trouble This was already signalled by Rozewicz in an exceptional scene from quot Letter from the Camp quot in which the boy 三九 s neighbour, seeing a fugitive Russian soldier, retreats immediately, admitting that quot Now, people worry only about themselves quot Such embarassing excuses mask fear During the occupation, no one feels safe Neither social status not the aegis of a charity organisation protects against repression We see the potential guardians of Mirka passing her back and forth among themselves These are friendly hands but they cannot offer strong support The story takes place on that thin line between solidarity and heroism Solidarity arises spontaneously, but only some are capable of heroism Help for the girl does not always result from compassion sometimes it is based on past relations and personal ties a neighbour of the doctor takes in the fugitive for a few days because of past friendship Rozewicz portrays all of this in a subtle way even the smallest gesture has significance Take, for example, the conversation with a stranger on the train: short, as if jotted down on the margin, but so full of tension And earlier, a peculiar examination of Polishness: the quot Holy Father quot prayer forced on Mirka by the village boys to check that she is not a Jew Would not rising to the challenge mean a death sentance br 　　Viewed after many years, quot Birth Certificate quot discloses yet another quality that is not present in the works of the Polish School, but is prominent in later B-class war films This is the picture of everyday life during the war and occupation outlined in the three novellas It harmonises with the logic of speaking about quot life after life quot Small heroes of Rozewicz suddenly enter the reality of war, with no experience or scale with which to compare it For them, the present is a natural extension of and at the same time a complete negation of the past Consider the sleey small-town marketplace, through which armoured columns will shortly pass Or meet the German motorcyclists, who look like aliens from outer space - a picture taken from an autopsy because this is how Stanislaw and Taduesz perceived the first Germans they ever met Note the blurred silhouettes of people against a white wall who are being shot - at first they are shocking, but soon they will probably become a part of the grim landscape In the city centre stands a prisoner camp on a sodden bog quot People perish likes flies the bodies are transported during the night quot in the street the childern are running after a coal wagon to collect some precious pieces of fuel There 三九 s a bustle around some food a boy reproaches his younger brother 三九 s actions by singing: quot The warrant officer 三九 s son is begging in front of the church I 三九 m going to tell mother quot and the kitchen, which one evening becomes the proscenium of a real drama And there are the symbols: a bar of chocolate forced upon a boy by a Wehrmacht soldier quot On the Road quot a pair of shoes belonging to Zbyszek 三九 s father which the boy spontaneously gives to a Russian fugitive a priceless slice of bread, ground nbsp under the heel of a policeman in the guter quot Letters from the Camp quot As the director put it: quot In every film, I communicate my own vision of the world and of the people Only then the style follows, the defined way of experiencing things quot In Birth Certificate, he adds, his approach was driven by the subject: quot I attempted to create not only the texture of the document but also to add some poetic element I know it is risky but as for the merger of documentation and poety, often hidden very deep, if only it manages to make its way onto the screen, it results in what can referred to as 三九 art 三九 quot br 　　After 一九四五, there were numerous films created in Europe that dealt with war and children, including quot Somewhere in Europe quot quot Valahol Europaban quot , 一九四七 by Geza Radvanyi , quot Shoeshine quot quot Sciescia quot , 一九四六 by Vittorio de Sica , and quot Childhood of Ivan quot quot Iwanowo dietstwo quot by Andriej Tarkowski Yet there were fewer than one would expect Pursuing a subject so imbued with sentimentalism requires stylistic disipline and a special ability to manage child actors The author of quot Birth Certificate quot mastered both - and it was not by chance Stanislaw Rozewicz was always the beneficent spirit of the film milieu he could unite people around a common goal He emanated peace and sensitivity, which flowed to his co-workers and pupils A film, being a group work, necessitates some form of empathy - tuning in with others br 　　In a biographical documentary about Stanislaw Rozewicz entitled quot Walking, Meeting quot 一九九九 by Antoni Krauze , there is a beautiful scene when the director, after a few decades, meets Beata Barszczewska, who plays Mireczka in the novella quot Drops of Blood quot The woman falls into the arms of the elderly man They are both moved He wonders how many years have passed She answers: quot A few years Not too many quot And Rozewicz, with his characteristic smile says: quot It is true We spent this entire time together quot p