Walerian Borowczyk Shorts Program

Introduction by artist Dick Roberts

Borowczyk’s first decade as a filmmaker produced a dazzling array of shorts, pioneering both narrative strategies (Renaissance’s reverse-explosion) and stylistic elements (cutout and hand-painted animation), influencing artists as wide-ranging as collaborator Chris Marker and admirer Terry Gilliam. Borowczyk’s second wave of shorts, concurrent with his entry into the world of feature filmmaking, is formally radical and conceptually surreal, touching on sentient objects and unlikely eroticism. This program showcases a key section of Borowczyk’s career, and arguably his most influential work.

Renaissance
Walerian Borowczyk, France, 1963, 9m
Borowczyk’s signature work, Renaissance features wrecked handmade objects gradually reconstructing themselves into a still-life composition before exploding once more. Dedicated to Hy Hirsh (the American photographer, cameraman, and abstract filmmaker who died prematurely of a heart attack in 1961), the objects (which include a doll, a stuffed owl, and a trumpet) in Renaissance serve as a concentrated microcosm of a larger, off-screen drama. A frequently humorous and sometimes ominous soundtrack (not to mention a brief flash of color) makes Renaissance one of Borowczyk’s most perfect films.

The Astronauts / Les astronauts
Walerian Borowczyk & Chris Marker, France, 1959, 12m
Borowczyk’s first professional film outside of Poland, The Astronauts takes the manipulated photograph technique of The School to dizzying new heights. The first of several Borowczyk films produced by Anatole Dauman, The Astronauts is credited as being co-directed by the late, legendary cine-essayist Chris Marker. According to Marker, his main contribution to Borowczyk’s film was the loan of his owl, Anabase. Fellow animator and sometime Borowczyk collaborator Michel Boschet plays the lead role in a film that invokes the wonder of Georges Méliès and the slapstick of Buster Keaton.

House / Dom
Walerian Borowczyk & Jan Lenica, Poland, 1959, 11m
A young woman inside a house succumbs to a succession of daydreams, fantasies, and nightmares. Arguably Borowczyk and Lenica’s masterpiece, House served as Borowczyk and Lenica’s ticket to the West. The result is a veritable compendium of animation techniques, which both look back at the European avant-garde of the 1920s (Cocteau, Richter, Ray, Ernst, Calder, Duchamp, etc.) while paving the way for the likes of latter-day Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer. It also features a remarkable electro-acoustic soundtrack by Włodzimierz Kotoński.

Rosalie
Walerian Borowczyk, France, 1966, 15m
French with English subtitles
Of all his films, Borowczyk’s favorite was Rosalie. Based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant, Borowczyk relates the plight of a servant girl who killed and buried her child in the garden. Featuring a profoundly touching performance by Ligia Branice, once again Borowczyk uses animated objects to relate action indirectly. An overexposed, chiaroscuro image gives the proceedings an ethereal quality halfway between one of Beckett’s monologues and David Lynch’s Eraserhead.

Diptych / Diptyque
Walerian Borowczyk, France, 1967, 12m
French with English subtitles
Diptych stands in many ways as the cornerstone of Borowczyk’s inimitable approach to cinema. Here, he presents two seemingly distinct “panels.” In the first, we see an old farmer, accompanied by his knackered dog, riding a clapped-out jalopy back home. Shot handheld with direct sound in grainy black and white, it makes a stark contrast to the second panel, which features a succession of tableaux vivants in startling colors, featuring houseplants and kittens playing against an aria from Bizet’s Carmen. While total opposites both in terms of form and style, the two panels nevertheless constitute a unified whole.

A Private Collection / Une collection particulière
Walerian Borowczyk, France, 1973, 12m
French with English subtitles
A Private Collection is not just a documentary on antiquated erotic paraphernalia but rather a description and reflection on predominantly Western sexual mores. Featuring both a commentary and the guiding hands of surrealist writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Borowczyk playfully switches between visual media: perverted sculpture, clandestine painting, Belle Époque photography, a magic lantern show, a cartoon, and archival film.

Joachim’s Dictionary / Le dictionnaire de Joachim
Walerian Borowczyk, France, 1965, 9m
Based on a sparse, singular design by Laurence Demaria (Ligia Branice), Joachim defines 26 words, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. As with, Grandma’s Encyclopedia, Borowczyk offers a succession of visual definitions that suggest a doomed attempt at mastering the absurdities of the world. Frequently hilarious, Joachim’s Dictionary is Borowczyk at his most anarchic.

Once Upon a Time / Byl sobie raz
Walerian Borowczyk & Jan Lenica, Poland, 1957, 9m
While not the first cut-out animation, this is without a doubt one of the most innovative. In effect, Borowczyk and Lenica transformed the economy, wit, and intelligence of the Polish poster into cinema. It is also notable for a groundbreaking electro-acoustic soundtrack courtesy of the Experimental Studio of Polish Radio.

Requited Sentiments / Nagrodzone uczucie
Walerian Borowczyk & Jan Lenica, Poland, 1957, 8m
Borowczyk and Lenica’s second collaboration is a politically correct romance told through the paintings of Jan Płaskociński. Playful, witty, and ironic, Requited Sentiments is augmented by a rousing score courtesy of the Warsaw Gasworks Brass Orchestra.

Angels’ Games / Les Jeux des Anges
Walerian Borowczyk, France, 1964, 12m
A brutal, chilling, and frequently erotic evocation of concentration-camp horror, named by Terry Gilliam as one of the 10 greatest animated films of all time.