Death: 33 Scenes From Life

Immediately after having written the last post about attitudes to death, the Polish Film 33 Scenes from Life (33 Sceny z Życia) arrived as a DVD.



I must immediately admit that I quickly learnt how culturally dependent my tastes are when I started watching Polish films. I had high hopes that I would find something different and refreshing, something uniquely Polish, but instead they are normally dull and predictable. Each to his own, of course. (Actually, I blame Łodż, but that's a different story.)

33 Scenes struck my early as a Polish version of a Woody Allen family and friends film. If you like Woody Allen, take that as recommendation in itself. If you don't, the characters are much different in this film: rawer, releasing their emotions rather than overcoming their repressions. Better, for me.

The film is about reactions to the death of parents: feelings during a protracted dying period, at the time of death and after. Both individual emotions and family tensions come across sensitively and, for me, largely realistically. There is some real humour within this, both as release from the tension by the characters themselves and in the situations. (Sex as well, of course.) Although I cannot claim that it kept me riveted to my seat, it was good enough to make me keep an ear out to hear what was happening - an achievement in itself for a non-action, domestic-plot film where you don't need to watch to know what is happening.

Although I knew the name of the film from TV promotion when it was released, I didn't know anything about its content. Reading the box afterwards, I found that a Polish critic felt that the film broke all Polish taboos. Not having been forewarned, I can only guess that this particularly relates to people not being extremely sad and silently respectful when a close family member has died. However, I do wonder how much this is a real Polish taboo, rather than related to the repressed nature of Polish film making. Indeed, the film funeral scene was amazingly similar to my being to the rear of a funeral procession walking through a cemetery, listening to the irreverent and irrelevant chatter, even including an identical "aren't they going the wrong way?". The emotion of the direct household were much different, but the film didn't have people pushing and shoving to get to see the coffin in the grave.

The DVD cover gave an alternative German perspective of the film, but decide for yourself whether you would want to read about it beforehand. I only thought it explained what had appeared to be a rather cliched and out-of character scene in the film, but I see where it's coming from.

One thing that particularity impressed me, however, was an actor who played a strong, quiet, sensitive man. I couldn't remember seeing him before, but it was one of the best performances I have seen in Polish films or on TV. I was told he might be German, however. There was also a scene where one of the actresses convincingly laughed strongly and loudly. Its weird that something so minor should impress me, but its not normal for Polish acting. She might also be German. More Polish-German collaborations, please. On the other hand, the film also has a known Polish actor (male) who always comes across to me as being feminine gay, which may have completely subverted some of the dramatic intention of the plot.

Apart from the content of the film, the DVD has a severe technical problem. It breaks up the spoken scenes with musical inserts. On our system, this was so loud that we had to turn the volume down - it was uncomfortable to listen to: fortunately we don't live in a flat. It may be OK in the cinema or just listening through TV speakers. The idea behind the contrast is good, but having to grab the remote spoils it. The music itself is actually much better than the normal formulaic orchestral (we know the right emotional harmonics), sentimental music, but it's imperfections are all to obvious when blasted down your ears.

Ultimately, although I cannot urge you to rush out and buy the DVD, it is worth watching if you have the chance. It's a step on the way to future quality Polish films, even if it doesn't quite make it all the way up the ladder itself. If it really is breaking Polish film taboos, a few more attempts would be worth the effort. Hopefully there will soon be the time when "acutely observed" will be a better description.

Days of the Dead: Recollection

Although 'Days of the Dead' is not an official title, there were three days last week that celebrated the dead in one form or another: Halloween, All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day.

I was surprised to find out how much Halloween is celebrated here. I had thought it was a primarily US occasion, with some minor echoes elsewhere, eg as a theme for TV programmes. I hadn't thought of it as an important school entertainment day in England and certainly can't recall the shops stocking huge amounts of pumpkins and other decorative gourds for people to take home for the celebration. It seem to have started here in the 1990s, but our first celebration was in 2004: we judged Misia old enough to go up and down the stairwell of the block and knock on neighbour's doors. We had our first pumpkin then.



Last year we had fun going around several farms to look at the pumpkins/gourds they had grown and choosing the best decorative combination. Just some of them are shown below.



This year we have one lonesome gourd by the front door, but I bought a combination of hats and decorated candle holders - a witch and two pumpkins. Misia is now a bit old to want to wander round, but we were visited by four sets of young horror film characters who were given a choice of cakes and sweets to take away with them. The doorbell constantly ringing reminded me of Christmas time in London some years ago. However, a Polish friend had told us that children were now knocking on the door in London as well.

Paulina Wawrzyńczyk's Discovering Polish and Poland gave us the spirit of All Saint's and All Soul's Days, with the latter - celebrating all those who have died - effectively being celebrated on All Saint's Day. I assume the latter - celebrating Saints known and unknown - is properly celebrated in church, but I have seen no wider sense of this being considered by people generally. Michael Dembinski's W-Wa Jezioriki gave a more sombre view, which, as Basia also commented on the blog, "choked me up a little bit". However, the historical sadness of his perspective is not one I recognise from visits to the graveside - it's a time of remembering loved ones for themselves, praying for them and some times talking to them. Our families may just be different. Mind you, one of the things that surprised me about Warsaw's Wolska cemetery was, unlike Michael's description, how little there was to remind me about the war (although the Warsaw Uprising Cemetery lies adjacent to it).

I can't give any pictures of visiting the graveyards over this period, however. My job is to stay at home, look after Misia and prepare the dinner. This routine actually started at my father-in-law's funeral. There were good logical reasons for my exclusion, although none would have been relevant if I was Polish.

Perhaps the most interesting reason was simply that English people have no respect for the dead. The converse of an Englishman liking the Polish tradition of visiting the graves of departed ones is that Polish people consider that the English do not care about them because they do not do visit them. Indeed, for most people, the idea of cremating someone and spreading their ashes under a rose bush is too abhorrent to contemplate. There has to be a grave to visit and maintain and, for many people, even cremation before burial is unacceptable. (Polish law still, I think, requires the remains to be buried.) Indeed, even an Aunt who failed to visit and maintain her husband's grave was clearly uncaring. However, in a way, they are right about me. I have no respect for the dead, but I do cherish the memories of those who have lived. Photographs of my father-in-law are more important to me than his grave.

When will it snow?

Paddy Ney commented on my last post "Does the snow really only begin mid-December? I seem to remember that in November 2008 it snowed (in Wroclaw) but my memory might be playing tricks."

Well, the weather has been on my mind recently, as evidenced by my last post. Having been digging for a couple of months, I cleared up my work area two days ago - moving about a ton of earth - and waited for the rain due yesterday. It came on time and flooded my excavations (water collection landscaping) as planned and, after pumping today, I find that it pretty much provides all the drainage I had hoped for. I am now ready for winter and, not only the snow, but the thaw as well. So, to celebrate, I will answer Paddy's question.

Last year (2009), the snow arrived on 14th October around 8:00 in the morning.

From 2009 10 Mlochow Autumn

It continued in varying amounts into the afternoon.





However, it started to thaw the next day.



Two days later, it had gone.



Mind you, when I was in Kielce (2002/3 winter, I think) the snow lay on the ground from November to April with just one week in February or March intervening. It's in the mountains (though not very high itself) and I didn't travel to Warsaw very much (coward as I am), so I don't know if it was the same on the plains.

Weather Reartrawl (or maybe postcast)

The weather has been marvellous for the past couple of months. Despite some morning frosts in September, the days have been warm, with only a very few drops of rain. The ground is as dry now as it has been for the last two years, only excepting a couple of very hot mid-summer weeks this year. Watering plants in the garden (chrystanths) in November seems bizarre. I have been getting on with doing the landscaping faster than I had believed possible, but digging has left me in pain. My old shoulder wound is constantly giving me the gyp. (The wound sounds better than arthritis - I'm too young, I say.)

What weather can we expect for the next couple of months? I thought I'd dredge up some pictures of last year - hence not a forecast, but a 'reartrawl' (changing 'fore' to 'rear' and 'cast' to 'trawl', as in dredging).

November 2009 was a combination of sunny and misty days, not too dissimilar to the last couple of months.

From 2009 2010 Mlochow Seasons

Cloudy days started in December, with snow arriving in the second half of the month.



It disappeared for Christmas, but returned to give us a light layer for New Year's Eve. This was snow on the 28th December.



I was going to paste even more individual pictures showing progress through the months, but I thought I'd try Picasa slideshow coding, as below. The pictures are all taken from roughly the same place looking from the building land behind our estate - the foreground - towards Młochów village - on the distance. Click on the black surround to get the play button, not the picture or the arrow lying on top of it.



The Picasa coding isn't that good and you may find yourself on the Picasa site with one of the pictures. If you then click on 'view all' at the top left of the picture and then 'slideshow', the images are much better there. Otherwise just return to this post.

Bureau for Investments and Economic Cycles

I recently came across the website of BIEC, which publishes analyses of Polish economic trends. There are many companies that produce such information, but I particularly like the long term trends shown on the graphics. The latest release shows the Market Conditions Index, which seems to be based on leading cyclical economic indicators. This remained stable for October 2010, the third month in a row.

What I particularly like about the presentation is the long-term perspective, with the information for this index going back to 1994, as below. (The image is taken straight from the website without permission, but I hope they don't mind me using it to advertise them.)



The index information, covering roughly two economic cycles, is fascinating in itself, with the 2008/2009 downturn merely a return to long term (from 1994) trend growth levels. The current level seems to be on the 2001-2005 trend line, with 2005-2007 being an abnormal growth period away from longer term trend, with the subsequent correction being seen from the graph to as having been a stabilising, rather than negative phenomenon. It will, of course be interesting to see the extent to which that 'abnormality' might feed into a longer term pattern, but there is no hint of that at the moment. Even without this, consistent trend growth over the period is absolutely clear. So, given the severity of the world recession and its inevitable negative impact on Polish growth, the long-term pattern of continuous growth seems inevitable, with any variation likely to be on the upside.

The information on the site is in Polish, but Google Translate works well - I have the browser button set up on Firefox, which stops me even having to think about the Polish.

Payment Card Fraud

One of the other bloggers mentioned that card companies were making money on foreign credit/payment cards by debiting the account in the foreign currency rather than Polish złoties, charging highly for the service.

I recently got a receipt from a shop for such a payment through Polcard. This has the wording:
I accept that I have been offered a choice of currencies for payment & that this choice is final [.] I accept the conversion rate & final amount & the selected currency

I wasn't offered a choice and didn't know about it until I got the receipt. Obviously I therefore didn't accept any of the things mentioned. The statement on the receipt is claimed to be by me, but it is in fact by Polcard. As far as I am concerned, it is simply fraudulent. Since it was printed out after I had keyed in my PIN and the transaction was complete - it is at the bottom of the receipt, I could not have agreed to it if the cashier had wanted me to. I therefore feel greatly aggrieved at this lie about my views. Far more so than the fact that they are making money out of me: that's business.

They wrote more, however:
The guaranteed FX rate is based on Reuters rate of the previous banking day including a hedging margin not exceeding 3.5%

I like the 'hedging margin' description, since it nicely suggests that the 3.5% is not there to make them money. Currencies do fluctuate, so safeguarding themselves sounds reasonable. However, they fluctuate to both the company's advantage and disadvantage and the net result should be that they make a profit, more so if they have a sensible forward buying policy. Well done, for the commercially manipulated wording all the same.

However, the statement did allow me to check with my English bank, which charges 2.5%. Since my English bank makes money out of me in every way possible, the card company's 3.5% is not unreasonable in itself. I now know that I don't want them to do the currency exchange, but will I be able to stop it?

Soon after, I went into a petrol station. I was offered the choice of złoties or euros. Euros was odd, but I did have a choice here and I chose złoties. However, the receipt came out in pounds. I told the cashier about the mistake and she tried to cancel the sterling payment. She was obviously new and had difficulties, which her colleague was too busy to help with, rather impatiently suggesting she ring up the card company. Since there was a queue and I was late, I accepted the payment in pounds. I will try again next time.

Warsaw's Rural Agglomeration

The Warsaw Agglomeration was defined in 2004 in the Masovian Voivodeship's Spatial Plan. The area seems only to be used administratively by the Vovoideship police, but is the basis for Voivodeship (ie regional) level co-ordination of the various independent local authorities in areas such as air pollution.

From 2010 10

Młochów is included in the area as part of the Pruszków (Pru-shkoov) local authority area and is one of many where the terms 'agglomeration', 'conurbation' or 'metropolitan area' seem quite out of place. The picture below is part of what appears to be a theoretical lower level (gmina) local authority road.



This comes to an end amidst the fields, but the local authority property continues through the trees on the left half of the picture below, with another track starting at the other end.



Polish Wikipedia's entry on the Warsaw agglomeration gives various alternative definitions, but almost all include Młochów. The Masovian definition is probably most concentrated on the main urban areas, but even so, the Agglomeration has 10% of its population in rural areas, whilst this rises to 32% if Warsaw City itself is excluded. Given the low population density of rural areas, the proportion of rural land must be much higher. It therefore seems fair to say that the Agglomeration is quite rural.



Woods and forests included.



The pictures were taken walking down the road beside Młochów school earlier in October: I was looking for autumn colour. I've pretty much given up on that now, though. The country was still quite pretty anyway.



Speaking of pretty, this morning's sunrise was one I just had to snap. Spectacular morning colour is so common in and around Warsaw that I already have loads of such pictures. I don't know whether it's my London background that keeps me fascinated by them or whether it is something more primeval. They are beautiful, though.