Interrogation (Przesluchanie)

Director: Ryszard Bugajski
Script: Ryszard Bugajski & Janusz Dymek
Cast: Krystyna Janda, Janusz Gajos, Adam Ferency, Agnieszka Holaand, Anna Romantowska, Olgierd Lukaszewicz
Running time: 117 minutes
Year: 1982
Certificate: 18

Antonia ‘Tonia’ Dziwisz (Krystyna Janda) is a well-known music hall/ cabaret entertainer during Communist era Poland. She’s a sensitive, arty type who is concerned that her husband might be cheating on her since he is quite flirtatious with a number of other women. However, her relatively normal life is turned upside down when, after one evening’s performance, while feeling sorry for herself, and angry at her partner, she allows herself to be picked up by two fans who take her to another bar. As she becomes more and more inebriated she finds herself being taken to what appears, initially, to be a police station, but ultimately turns out to be something far more sinister.

Tonia is quickly stripped of her clothes, her ID and her dignity as she’s take in for questioning by the authorities who treat her like a criminal, accusing her of being a traitor to her country because of her lifestyle and the company she keeps. Their questions reveal her to be a moderate with libertarian views, which, of course, goes down like a ton of lead with her captors. The interrogators ask her a wide range of questions about her life, including about her first kiss and when she lost her virginity. Whenever she refuses to answer their questions she’s abused, and at one point is almost drowned during a particularly unpleasant stint in solitary confinement.

It seems that they suspect a former lover of hers, a colonel Olcha, of being a spy, hence she’s been ‘tarred with the same brush’, thus giving them carte blanche, (well, in their eyes), to do what they want to her, including making her drink urine and threatening to shoot her in the head. During one particularly emotionally draining scene they bring in her husband to see her, but far from being a happy reunion he asks for a divorce, no longer wanting to be associated with her.

Eventually she tries to kill herself, but ends up in hospital and she begins a secret relationship with one of her captors, one who seems to have some sympathy for her plight. She winds up pregnant with his baby, but this is quickly taken from her, despite the fact that Stalin has now died and the communist regime is beginning to crumble at the seams.

As one might have guessed from the above description, Interrogation is a hard watch, even gruelling in places. However, despite its dour cinephotography, ugly sets and set-pieces and sad story, the film is very watchable, managing to keep one’s interest, and, even those with no interest in Polish history will find themselves quickly sucked into this powerful story about the indomitable human spirit. It also helps that the acting is top-notch, especially Krystyna Janda’s haunting portrayal of the wronged Tonia.

Interrogation was named ‘film of the year’ by the Solidarity Movement, when it initially came out, but it was quickly banned in Poland after the authorities deemed it to be an anti-socialist film, and, in later years, the only way to see it was on bootlegged VHS tapes, after the director stole a copy of the film and had it secretly transferred onto tape. Belonging to the so-called ‘cinema of moral anxiety’, Interrogation’s following has grown over the years and it’s now seen as an important film within the annals of Polish cinema. In fact, the film is a direct assault on a political system that terrorizes its citizens, and is therefore seen as being an important social document from the time it was made.

Interrogation is being distributed by Second Run on Blu-ray. There are a number of substantial extras included in the package, namely:

Ryszard Bugajski on Interrogation (32 mins) – A 2005 interview with the director in which he discusses the film’s contextual history, its difficult production, and the controversy surrounding its initial release in Poland. Apparently it was shot four months before martial law was imposed in the country, in 1981, and they had to get round there being a shortage in 35mm film stock, which they ended up having to get from companies in London and Sweden and also from some friends. Ryszard ended up having to hide the film’s rushes on a building site due to martial law, but digging it out and editing it over two months.

40-page booklet with writing on the film by Michael Szporer and the complete transcript of the 1982 hearing before the so-called ‘Co-laudation’ commission, which led to the film’s total suppression.  There are also the director’s storyboards for Tonia’s first experience of imprisonment.