Angelus

Taking a cue from my recent trip to Poland and the fact that my cousin is now happily married to a nice young Polish woman, I decided recently to take advantage of an opportunity to watch a Polish director. A film series on the works of Lech Majewski has been showing recently and so I jumped in with eager anticipation for what Poland had to offer. He is an artist and painter and has more than a bit in common with Julian Schnabel. Schnabel of course directed one of my favorite films from last year The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Majewski wrote the story for Basquiat which Schnabel directed. Both have an eye for the visual and a way of framing a scene so beautifully that one can't help but stare breathlessly as one does when observing a great piece of art work.

Angelus tells the story of a strange commune of men who are given three prophecies when their master dies. The first two seem to come true and when they see what they interpret as the sign of the third they take action to stop the destruction of the world. The story if filled with eccentric characters and scenes including but not limited to a guy blowing himself up, an attempt to scale the communist party headquarters and other such zaniness. The story is actually quite funny at times and the images coming at you are sometimes overwhelming.

More artistically driven than narratively, there are some absolutely gorgeous images in this film. Be it an opening sequence where a group of minors walk towards the camera with their headlamps shining forth or one of the many "picture" scenes. That is scenes with titles at the top or bottom which seem to start or end as snapshots in time and represent singular themes such as betrayal. All of it is quite beautiful and at times downright memorizing. The story seems ancillary but by no means unimportant. There is clearly a wonderful connection between the paintings that the characters create and the "paintings" of individual scenes.

In the end it was a pleasant and amusing film that was absolutely wonderful to look at and if you should get the chance I recommend you see it.