In 1961, Stanislaw Rozewicz created the novella film "Birth Certificate" in cooperation with his brother, Taduesz Rozewicz as screenwriter. Such brother tandems are rare in the history of film but aside from family ties, Stanislaw (born in 1924) and Taduesz (born in 1921) were mutually bound by their love for the cinema. They were born and grew up in Radomsk, a small town which had "its madmen and its saints" and most importanly, the "Kinema" cinema, as Stanislaw recalls: for him cinema is "heaven, the whole world, enchantment". Tadeusz says he considers cinema both a charming market stall and a mysterious temple. "All this savage land has always attracted and fascinated me," he says. "I am devoured by cinema and I devour cinema; I'm a cinema eater." But Taduesz Rozewicz, an eminent writer, admits this unique form of cooperation was a problem to him: "It is the presence of the other person not only in the process of writing, but at its very core, which is inserperable for me from absolute solitude." Some scenes the brothers wrote together; others were created by the writer himself, following discussions with the director. But from the perspective of time, it is "Birth Certificate", rather than "Echo" or "The Wicked Gate", that Taduesz describes as his most intimate film. This is understandable. The tradgey from September 1939 in Poland was for the Rozewicz brothers their personal "birth certificate". When working on the film, the director said "This time it is all about shaking off, getting rid of the psychological burden which the war was for all of us. ... Cooperation with my brother was in this case easier, as we share many war memories. We wanted to show to adult viewers a picture of war as seen by a child. ... In reality, it is the adults who created the real world of massacres. Children beheld the horrors coming back to life, exhumed from underneath the ground, overwhelming the earth."
The principle of composition of "Birth Certificate" is not obvious. When watching a novella film, we tend to think in terms of traditional theatre. We expect that a miniature story will finish with a sharp point; the three film novellas in Rozewicz's work lack this feature. We do not know what will be happen to the boy making his alone through the forest towards the end of "On the Road". We do not know whether in "Letter from the Camp", the help offered by the small heroes to a Soviet prisoner will rescue him from the unknown fate of his compatriots. The fate of the Jewish girl from "Drop of Blood" is also unclear. Will she keep her new impersonation as "Marysia Malinowska"? Or will the Nazis make her into a representative of the "Nordic race"? Those questions were asked by the director for a reason. He preceived war as chaos and perdition, and not as linear history that could be reflected in a plot. Although "Birth Certificate" is saturated with moral content, it does not aim to be a morality play. But with the immense pressure of reality, no varient of fate should be excluded. This approached can be compared wth Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blind Chance" 25 years later, which pictured dramatic choices of a different era.
The film novella "On the Road" has a very sparing plot, but it drew special attention of the reviewers. The ominating overtone of the war films created by the Polish Film School at that time should be kept in mind. Mainly owing to Wajda, those films dealt with romantic heritage. They were permeated with pathos, bitterness, and irony. Rozewicz is an extraordinary artist. When narrating a story about a boy lost in a war zone, carrying some documents from the regiment office as if they were a treasure, the narrator in "On the Road" discovers rough prose where one should find poetry. And suddenly, the irrational touches this rather tame world. The boy, who until that moment resembled a Polish version of the Good Soldier Schweik, sets off, like Don Quixote, for his first and last battle. A critic described it as "an absurd gesture and someone else could surely use it to criticise the Polish style of dying. ... But the Rozewicz brothers do no accuse: they only compose an elegy for the picturesque peasant-soldier, probably the most important veteran of the Polish war of 1939-1945." "Birth Certificate" is not a lofty statement about national imponderabilia. The film reveals a plebeian perspective which Aleksander Jackieqicz once contrasted with those "lyrical lamentations" inherent in the Kordian tradition. However, a historical overview of Rozewicz's work shows that the distinctive style does not signify a fundamental difference in illustrating the Polish September. Just as the memorable scene from Wajda's "Lotna" was in fact an expression of desperation and distress, the same emotions permeate the final scene of "Birth Certificate". These are not ideological concepts, though once described as such and fervently debated, but rather psychological creations. In this specific case, observes Witold Zalewski, it is not about manifesting knightly pride, but about a gesture of a simple man who does not agree to be enslaved.
The novella "Drop of Blood" is, with Aleksander Ford's "Border Street", one of the first narrations of the fate of the Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. The story about a girl literally looking for her place on earth has a dramatic dimension. Especially in the age of today's journalistic disputes, often manipulative, lacking in empathy and imbued with bad will, Rozewicz's story from the past shocks with its authenticity. The small herione of the story is the only one who survives a German raid on her family home. Physical survial does not, however, mean a return to normality. Her frightened departure from the rubbish dump that was her hideout lead her to a ruined apartment. Her walk around it is painful because still fresh signs of life are mixed with evidence of annihilation. Help is needed, but Mirka does not know anyone in the outside world. Her subsequent attempts express the state of the fugitive's spirits - from hope and faith, moving to doubt, a sense of oppression, and thickening fear, and finally to despair.
At the same time, the Jewish girl's search for refuge resembles the state of Polish society. The appearance of Mirka results in confusion, and later, trouble. This was already signalled by Rozewicz in an exceptional scene from "Letter from the Camp" in which the boy's neighbour, seeing a fugitive Russian soldier, retreats immediately, admitting that "Now, people worry only about themselves." Such embarassing excuses mask fear. During the occupation, no one feels safe. Neither social status not the aegis of a charity organisation protects against repression. We see the potential guardians of Mirka passing her back and forth among themselves. These are friendly hands but they cannot offer strong support. The story takes place on that thin line between solidarity and heroism. Solidarity arises spontaneously, but only some are capable of heroism. Help for the girl does not always result from compassion; sometimes it is based on past relations and personal ties (a neighbour of the doctor takes in the fugitive for a few days because of past friendship). Rozewicz portrays all of this in a subtle way; even the smallest gesture has significance. Take, for example, the conversation with a stranger on the train: short, as if jotted down on the margin, but so full of tension. And earlier, a peculiar examination of Polishness: the "Holy Father" prayer forced on Mirka by the village boys to check that she is not a Jew. Would not rising to the challenge mean a death sentance?
Viewed after many years, "Birth Certificate" discloses yet another quality that is not present in the works of the Polish School, but is prominent in later B-class war films. This is the picture of everyday life during the war and occupation outlined in the three novellas. It harmonises with the logic of speaking about "life after life". Small heroes of Rozewicz suddenly enter the reality of war, with no experience or scale with which to compare it. For them, the present is a natural extension of and at the same time a complete negation of the past. Consider the sleey small-town marketplace, through which armoured columns will shortly pass. Or meet the German motorcyclists, who look like aliens from outer space - a picture taken from an autopsy because this is how Stanislaw and Taduesz perceived the first Germans they ever met. Note the blurred silhouettes of people against a white wall who are being shot - at first they are shocking, but soon they will probably become a part of the grim landscape. In the city centre stands a prisoner camp on a sodden bog ("People perish likes flies; the bodies are transported during the night"); in the street the childern are running after a coal wagon to collect some precious pieces of fuel. There's a bustle around some food (a boy reproaches his younger brother's actions by singing: "The warrant officer's son is begging in front of the church? I'm going to tell mother!"); and the kitchen, which one evening becomes the proscenium of a real drama. And there are the symbols: a bar of chocolate forced upon a boy by a Wehrmacht soldier ("On the Road"); a pair of shoes belonging to Zbyszek's father which the boy spontaneously gives to a Russian fugitive; a priceless slice of bread, ground under the heel of a policeman in the guter ("Letters from the Camp"). As the director put it: "In every film, I communicate my own vision of the world and of the people. Only then the style follows, the defined way of experiencing things." In Birth Certificate, he adds, his approach was driven by the subject: "I attempted to create not only the texture of the document but also to add some poetic element. I know it is risky but as for the merger of documentation and poety, often hidden very deep, if only it manages to make its way onto the screen, it results in what can referred to as 'art'."
After 1945, there were numerous films created in Europe that dealt with war and children, including "Somewhere in Europe" ("Valahol Europaban", 1947 by Geza Radvanyi), "Shoeshine" ("Sciescia", 1946 by Vittorio de Sica), and "Childhood of Ivan" ("Iwanowo dietstwo" by Andriej Tarkowski). Yet there were fewer than one would expect. Pursuing a subject so imbued with sentimentalism requires stylistic disipline and a special ability to manage child actors. The author of "Birth Certificate" mastered both - and it was not by chance. Stanislaw Rozewicz was always the beneficent spirit of the film milieu; he could unite people around a common goal. He emanated peace and sensitivity, which flowed to his co-workers and pupils. A film, being a group work, necessitates some form of empathy - tuning in with others.
In a biographical documentary about Stanislaw Rozewicz entitled "Walking, Meeting" (1999 by Antoni Krauze), there is a beautiful scene when the director, after a few decades, meets Beata Barszczewska, who plays Mireczka in the novella "Drops of Blood". The woman falls into the arms of the elderly man. They are both moved. He wonders how many years have passed. She answers: "A few years. Not too many." And Rozewicz, with his characteristic smile says: "It is true. We spent this entire time together."
当代歌舞片除了将热门议题加入进来就没有任何创新了吗，有时候甚至觉得歌舞段落只会拖时间，对叙事没起到任何帮助，奇观都算不上了
有什麼比擅長人文場景的大師翻拍音樂歌舞經典還更令人期待？
但这新瓶装旧酒只停留在了“装了就行”，也不考虑加入一些深处这时代的思考和变化，原版怎么来，这版还怎么来。
很难想象是Steven Spielberg导的= =
几个ensemble numbers都拍得特别好，看得我心潮澎湃，然而紧接着就是ansel elgort村头二傻子般的演出，又让我命丧当场。整个观影过程就是这么死去活来的。至于新人女主，几乎没有演技可言，就爱豆水平吧，哥哥死后和嫂子那场戏被压得毫无存在感。还是给个四星，敬伯恩斯坦桑德海姆。
感觉是一锅乱炖，看的时候总觉得是在看罗朱，但男女主之间又没啥化学反应，除了歌舞还不错，别的真的是灾难。觉得就是有很多东西要讲，但也什么都没讲出来，一场热闹过后，就各自散去了。
充满了种族对立，女主的脑回路也让人大受震撼。把他当纯歌舞片呢，也不够好听好看。这种思想陈旧纯属虚构的故事，如果没法与时俱进提出新的思考，就别拍了。坐在隔壁的姐姐全程跟唱，我也能理解导演对这个故事有深厚的情结，但好歹编一点阳间的剧情。 女二在女主的衬托下格外美，她的裙子她的舞蹈都充满了阳光。
另外，整部电影如此让人感同身受的是其中的压抑。是时时刻刻精神被推向承受力极限的压迫感，是不能向任何人表达和倾诉的痛苦，是无处不在的隐瞒，每一件事情都是秘密，每一件事情都需要撒谎——唯有这一点如此真实，能够让荧幕外的我感同身受。
你要说这毕竟是歌舞片嘛
但是彼时风韵冠绝全球的好莱坞啊，现在早就不复存在了，而片子也怎么都复刻不了甚至再也无法展现那种好莱坞全盛时期的魅力和韵味，即使他是斯皮尔伯格。
亲哥被杀了，马上就和凶手滚床单，这是什么神仙逻辑
爱死Ariana DeBose!! Ansel没有网传的差，Rachel也没有预期的完美，David Alvarez超性感。Ariana DeBose完美！奥斯卡最佳女配预定！
2022-03-20
技术上特别厉害，故事虽然我有些疑虑但在当下特别有意义，人与人间分歧产生的争端升级后只会带来伤害，愿大家平和，愿世界和平。这是我在豆瓣标记看过的第3000部电影。
除不时闯入并撕裂剧情的歌舞部分外，所剩的一切都是如此冗长无趣。没看过原版，但这极有可能是最差的一部斯皮尔伯格。
★★★☆ 我對1961年的經典版其實就沒有那麼喜歡，《羅密歐與朱麗葉》的故事被改得很沒意思，而且拍得只見故事不見人，但是我喜歡這一版，讓我看到了些許人。你永遠可以相信Steven Spielberg的調度能力，將整個故事更加電影化，不僅是musical而且是cinema，在保留有黃金時代歌舞片味道之餘，又注入了活力，更加自由，更加輕盈，當然男女主角的選角和表現令人難以滿意，更可惜的是改編還是保守了些，沒能有更加當代的表達，不過即便有著各種不盡如人意之處，卻也是《愛樂之城》之後我最喜歡的一部歌舞片了。
漂亮的灯光舞美也挽救不了这片的男主，片尾for Dad说明了导演的意图。
场面调度都是大师级的，也几乎做到了突破舞台的限制，最大程度地展现出了歌舞片的魅力。可是总有些地方看起来很奇怪，无论是演技还是舞蹈，男主是完全比不过其他配角的，他的表演方式与整部片子的风格有违和感。虽然我没看过原版，但是这个故事放到当下这个时代来讲显然有些过时，再加上是一部歌舞片，免不了让剧情看起来很拖沓。除了视听艺术之外，哪儿哪儿都不到位，虽然被本届奥斯卡提名但我并不太看好。
Your love is your life
看下歌舞声的编排，以及老私拿手的调度。中等水准，对老版灵魂复刻，无奈原版就存在槽点缺陷，这部观赏性略胜老版。★★★/6.4
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