Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
This is how cinema should be made! And this is what cinema should look like.
A LIFE OF IDEAS
Selected writings, music, visual works, essays and audiovisual projects. This English version follows the same structure as the Polish site, but contains selected texts and projects intended for an international audience.
My Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend: an ordinary, mediocre story, colourless prose and a Naples without flavour.
My Brilliant Friend — a museum of neorealism
Kitsch, artificial sets and an aesthetic of authenticity instead of authenticity. A personal review of My Brilliant Friend, adapted from Elena Ferrante’s novel.
Hydra — a narrative with too many heads
A fascinating subject overwhelmed by a narrative that sprawls chaotically in every direction.
Napoleon by Ridley Scott
Visually beautiful, conceptually weak. A few words on Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. A film that tries to tell too much.
book/review/opinion/At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque/1893/Anatole France/nobel prize/
A review of Anatole France’s novel through its language, humour, historical world and Jan Sten’s remarkable Polish translation.
Arvo Pärt at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus
A concert report from Athens — music, place, ancient and modern audiences, history and a late-night walk to Exarchia.
Three Visions of Provincial America
A comparative essay on Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor and Marilynne Robinson — three visions of solitude, religion and strangeness in provincial America.