Playing at nationalities – an interview with Jan Holoubek – Polish Film Festival

The second aspect that may prove controversial is the Jewish or Israeli theme. There is the subject of a Jewish treasure, and the lead character is played by an Israeli actor with anti-Israeli views…

I wouldn’t say that Itay holds anti-Israeli views. They are anti-government. I believe this is a very important distinction. He is deeply attached to his country, he is a patriot and loves his country, whilst at the same time utterly condemning Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. One does not preclude the other. This is the context that is often overlooked, even here in Poland. And once again we have extreme and foolish polarisation, which fails to recognise the nuances, the complexity and the tragedy that has befallen that region of the world.

I don’t want to get drawn into this debate, because what is happening today is far too complicated. Even within Israel itself, there are more than two sides to this conflict. I can say one thing, however: something is happening in the Middle East today whose origins lie where my film ends.

It seems to me that this spiral of hatred and aggression, which first sweeps away one nationality and then another, is the wheel of history. It is a consequence of what happened back then and throughout the decades or centuries that preceded it.

Let’s not give the ending away, but can you tell us what it was like working on the final sequence from Itay Tiran’s perspective?

The whole crew felt that this was a situation that went beyond a normal film set. Usually, even when shooting serious scenes, there’s a lot of laughter. That’s necessary to ease the tension. With this sequence, however, it was different.

For Itay, it was a deeply moving experience, as it touched on his family’s history.

Itay is a brilliant, magnificent actor. During those days, he was completely focused, cut off from the day-to-day life on set. He would only step in front of the camera when the director called ‘Action’. In this scene, you can see his face relax, as if the mask he’d been wearing throughout the film had slipped away. In a sense, he didn’t act that out. It just happened.

When we finished the sequence and everyone started clapping, there was a sense of relief that it was over, that everything had gone well. He broke down in tears then, but they weren’t tears of joy. In a way, Itay had re-enacted his family’s trauma.

How did he end up in this project? It’s quite an unusual choice.

At first, I thought a German actor would play Wolff, so I went to Berlin for the screen tests. I had a German casting director there, Suse Marquardt, who invited a dozen or so truly brilliant German actors – some big names. They came because they really liked the script.

Suddenly, Itay walked in and he blew me away. Not because the others were any worse, but because he was the perfect fit for the role: in terms of acting talent, wisdom and understanding of the subject matter. A certain handsomeness was also important – I needed that to have a hero who rides in on a horse, and from the very start we know he’s our hero. So he simply won the part.

And what about his Polish?

He worked very hard on it. I’m pleased with the result.

And what about the Polish cast? You’ll sometimes find sought-after actors even in supporting roles here.

This is a film centred on a small number of characters; to a certain extent, it could be a play. It relies very heavily on dialogue, so there was no scope for experimentation with the cast.

I first got in touch with Robert Więckiewicz about this film about six years ago, I think. He read the script and said right from the start that he wanted to be in it. Over the years, in fact, he kept asking me about the project whenever we bumped into each other. From the very start, I could picture Piotr Trojan in his role. The same went for Joanna Kulig as his wife and Magda Różczka as Helena. I told the actors straight out that this film is so important to me that every role, regardless of its size, is equally important.

Janusz Chabior agreed to play a role in which he doesn’t say a single word. It turned out that he has a brother who is almost his twin – though not an actor – and they appear together on screen here. It was a wonderful twist of fate.

Let’s get back to the film’s style. On the one hand, it all starts with a comic book, which is a bit of a hint, but the ending itself is a real shocker. Is this juggling of genres – the Western and so on – more than just a bit of fun for you?

I’m only pretending to be playing. The final sequence is no longer a game. Humanity ‘plays’ at nationality – which is better, which is worse, which deserves to be singled out above the rest. Only this game generally ends where my film ends. There’s no more fun there. It’s happening a few hundred kilometres from our border.

The comic strip, as an element of the plot, was in the script from the outset, but the film didn’t begin with it – this was a device added only during the editing stage, and it was entirely deliberate. Anyone familiar with Art Spiegelman’s comic ‘Maus’ will know how this combination of form and content can be deeply moving, even if one has already seen hundreds of stories about the Holocaust. We, too, wanted to find a different angle on this subject, so that we could retell what we already know in a new way.

Because we need to keep talking about it over and over again. We need to keep reminding people what happened back then, because I get the impression that people are somehow pushing it out of their minds.

Or perhaps they hadn’t even given it a second thought.

That is why I care more about the younger generation than about my peers or yours, who were brought up by their grandparents with a deep understanding of what the Second World War was and what it was like.

I get the impression that part of our society has either forgotten or does not know what happened here just over eighty years ago. We witnessed one of the greatest crimes in the history of humanity. I am horrified that something like this is on the rise again in Europe and in our country, and that people like Grzegorz Braun have such a following amongst the public.

As a society, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again and falling into the traps we know from history, even though we know full well where that leads. New generations want to start afresh, to see if things really will be different this time. But it will be just as bad. You need to know your history; only then can you look at the present and not be so easily duped by manipulators, populists and opportunistic fools.