Article Bodily Violence and Resistance in Wojtek Smarzowski’s Rose (Róża, 2011)

ELŻBIETA OSTROWSKA, University of Alberta, Canada; email: [email protected]

38 DOI: 10.2478/bsmr-2018-0003 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE ABSTRACT The article argues that Wojtek Smarzowski’s filmRose (Róża, , 2011) undermines the dominant bi- gendered logic of screen death and suffering in the Polish films depicting the experience of World War II. In these films, there is a significant absence of images of female suffering and death, which is striking when compared to the abundant images of wounded and dying male bodies, usually represented as a lavish visual spectacle. This unrepresented female death serves as a ‘structuring absence’ that governs the systematic signifying practices of Polish cinema. Most importantly, it expels the female experience of World War II from the realm of history to the realm of the mythical. This representational regime has been established in the Polish national cinema during the 1950s, especially in ’s films, and is still proving its longevity. As the author argues, Smarzowski’s Rose is perhaps the most significant attempt to undermine this gendered cinematic discourse.

Specifically, the essay explores the ways in which Smarzowski’s Rose departs from previous dominant modes of representation of the World War II experience in Polish cinema, especially its gendered aspect.1 Firstly, it examines how Rose abandons the generic conventions of both war film and historical drama and instead, utilises selected conventions of melodrama to open up the textual space in which to represent the female experience of historical events. Then the author looks more closely at this experience and discusses the film’s representation of the suffering female body to argue that it subverts the national narrative of the war experience that privileges male suffering. A close analysis of the relationship between sound and image in the scenes of bodily violence reveals

1 In his monograph on Rose, Andrzej Szpulak focuses on the film’s continuities with the Polish national discourse. However, he declares that he is only interested in the narrative, claiming that, in his critical approach, the visual qualities of the film are of secondary importance (Szpulak 2016: 31). While accepting such a critical perspective, I will undertake a radically different critical strategy by demonstrating how Rose uses various formal, mostly audiovisual, devices to subvert certain elements of the national tradition.

39 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE how the film reclaims the female body from the abstract domain of national allegory and returns it to the realm of individual embodied experience. The article concludes that Rose presents the female body as resisting the singular ideological inscription, and instead, portrays it as simultaneously submitting to and resisting the gendered violence of war.

A war film is commonly understood to be a critique of patriarchy that is one that ‘deals with warfare, preparations predominantly premised on for war or its aftermath, or warfare as a depicting women as impassive background to or integral part of the action’ and victimized social actors (Blanford et al. 2001: 258). The stories might run the risk of inadvertently these films tell most often feature capa- perpetuating the notion that, in ble and strong male bodies that are crucial war, women are victims and vic- for developing the nationalist narratives of tims only. War stories, typically (mostly male) heroism. While discussing the premised on normative gender body politics of military conflicts and their assumptions, often run such representation, Karen Randell and Sean risks, as their prevalent attention Redmond observe that war is ‘an interior to masculinist violence to which and interpersonal mechanism that writes women are subjected has the identities and scripts differences’ (Randell, cumulative effect of re-stabilizing Redmond 2008: 1; emphasis in original). In the rigid, binary, and traditional a similar vein, Anna Froula examines how gender roles even when its indi- war specifically inscribes identities on indi- vidual pieces might be geared vidual bodies emphasising the gendered as a critique of such roles rather aspect of these operations: ‘Warfare’s ter- than their perpetuation. rain as the site of mythical man-making (Jelača 2016: 60–61) often doubles as the site of women’s actual un-making, as the long, sordid history of In the Polish films depicting the World rape attest’ (Froula 2014: xi). Froula’s per- War II experience, this binary gender spective succinctly reveals that cinematic regime is still present, but is significantly representations of violence, especially of blurred. In the works of the Polish School, a sexual nature, against women in war such as (Pokolenie, Andrzej narratives, are inevitably entangled within Wajda, Poland, 1955) or Kanał (Andrzej contradictory ideological agendas. On the Wajda, Poland, 1957), women are often one hand, these images and narratives rec- depicted as heroic characters. However, ognise the female suffering that is often they are rarely, if ever, presented as dying silenced in the narratives of male hero- heroically, which is at odds with their actual ism. On the other hand, they also solidify a historical experience. In ‘Invisible Deaths: traditional gender discourse that assigns Polish Cinema’s Representation of Women women a position of passivity and vul- in World War II’, an essay published nerability. As Dijana Jelača claims in her in 2012, I pondered on the possible book Dislocated Screen Memory: Narrating explanations and implications of the non- Trauma in Post-Yugoslav Cinema: represented heroic female death in Polish

40 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE war cinema.1 I noted that this absence was Nazis, Tadeusz (Marcin Dorociński), the especially striking as it contrasts with the male protagonist, escapes the town and abundant images of male death, usually travels to the Masurian Lakes district in represented within a lavish visual specta- the North-East region of Poland. There, he cle. Identifying this unrepresented female finds the eponymous Rose (Agata Kulesza), death as a ‘structuring absence’ that gov- the wife of a German soldier whose death erns the systematic signifying practices he witnessed. He visits the woman to give of Polish cinema, I stated that it ‘expel[s] to her some memorabilia that belonged to female characters from the realm of histor- her late husband. Initially distrustful, she ical experience into the realm of the mythic. eventually invites Tadeusz to her house. Their everlasting and indestructible femi- Soon, he finds out that while liberating ninity lends itself to symbolic identification the region, Soviet soldiers had raped Rose with an equally eternal and imperishable regularly. In addition, as a member of the idea of motherland’ (Ostrowska 2012: 56). Masurian ethnic minority, she is now also This representational regime was estab- being subjected to hostility from her Polish lished in Polish national cinema during neighbours, who call her ‘a Russian whore’. the 1950s, especially in the films of Andrzej Although Taduesz is unable to completely Wajda,2 and is still proving its staying protect and save the woman, he attempts power. to safeguard her and bring some comfort In the year 2012, when the afore- to her suffering body. After Rose dies from mentioned essay ‘Invisible Deaths’ was cancer that developed after the miscar- published, Wojtek Smarzowski’s Rose was riage of her post-rape pregnancy, he fulfils released, a film that significantly under- her dying wish and marries her daughter, mines the dominant bi-gendered logic of Jadwiga (Malwina Buss). The arranged mar- screen death and suffering in Polish cin- riage is the only way to keep the farm that ema.3 Its action takes place after the defeat would otherwise have been confiscated by of the Uprising. After witnessing the new Communist authorities who are his wife being raped and killed by the actively engaged in ethnic cleansing. Soon after Rose’s death, Tadeusz refuses to col- laborate with the new regime and is conse- quently imprisoned for several years. After his release, he returns to the village to take 1 As I indicate in the article, the narratives of numerous Polish films depicting World War II, among others care of Jadwiga and the farm. However, Wajda’s A Generation and Kanał imply the deaths of he finds that a repatriated family from the female characters, yet this is never visualised on screen. For example, there is no doubt that Dorota Eastern Borderline (Kresy) region has taken (Urszula Modrzyńska) and Stokrotka (Teresa Iżewska) possession of the property. He makes no die, yet the films’ representational regime leaves it off-screen, whereas Jasio Krone’s (Tadeusz Janczar) attempt to reclaim it and both he and Jad- death is presented as a lavish visual spectacle. Most wiga leave the farm. Their uncertain future symptomatically, when Halinka’s (Teresa Berezowska) suicidal death occurs in Kanał, the screen turns black is signified by the final image of the two fig- for a while – thus, the ‘invisibility’ of female death ures vanishing into a desolate landscape. becomes almost literal. For a more detailed discussion see Ostrowska 2012. In this essay, I will examine the ways in 2 In her essay discussing the oeuvre of Wojtek which Smarzowski’s Rose departs from the Smarzowski, Izabela Kalinowska also extensively examines his relationship with Andrzej Wajda’s previous dominant modes of representa- films; she concludes that Smarzowski is just as tion of the World War II experience in Polish implicated in Polishness as Wajda (Kalinowska 2016: 118). Many other Polish critics, as well as Andrzej cinema, and especially its gendered aspect. Szpulak (2016), offer a similar perspective. For a Firstly, I will examine how Rose abandons detailed presentation of critical reception of Rose, see Szpulak 2016: 130–142. the generic conventions of both war film 3 For a detailed discussion of Smarzowski’s authorship and historical drama, and instead, utilises and his engagement with Polish history, see Kalinowska 2016 and Szpulak 2016. Both authors claim that the selected conventions of melodrama in order director’s work needs to be placed within Polish culture to open up textual space in which to rep- and its romantic tradition, however they do not engage in its gender aspect, which is my focus here. resent the female experience of historical

41 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE events.4 Thereafter, I will look more closely The end of World War II in Poland con- at this experience and discuss the film’s stituted a radical moment of rupture with representation of the suffering female body history, and as such, separated both indi- to argue that it subverts the national nar- viduals and collectives from the pre-war rative of the war experience that privileges reality with its attendant ethical codes and male suffering.5 Through close analysis of principles. Along with the implementation the relationship between sound and image of the Yalta Agreement dividing Europe into in the scenes of bodily violence, I will show the West and the East, the pre-war borders how the film reclaims the female body from of the Polish state were changed and, con- the abstract domain of national allegory sequently, the concept of the Polish nation and returns it to the realm of individual had to be re-defined as well. As Matilda embodied experience.6 Mroz reports in her discussion of Rose, after World War II ‘[t]he policy of the newly- MELODRAMATIC RUPTURES established Polish government was to cre- AND DISPLACEMENTS ate an ethnically homogenous Polish nation In his seminal book, The Melodramatic out of this heterogeneous, multi-ethnic Imagination, Peter Brooks explains that territory [Masurian Lake district], and to the mode of melodrama emerged after the expel the “others” and “foreigners” beyond French Revolution in response to ‘a world its frontiers’ (Mroz 2016: 61). Rose depicts where the traditional imperatives of truth these geopolitical changes by focusing on and ethics have been violently thrown into the enforced migratory movements that question, yet where the promulgation of were violently executed by the new Com- truth and ethics, their instauration as a munist authorities. The Masurian ethnic way of life is of immediate, daily, political minority was the main victim of these poli- concern’ (Brooks 1976: 15). This emerging cies due to its hybrid ethnic and cultural artistic form proved capable to contain all identity. They were Polish settlers who the social and cultural changes by means were strongly influenced by the East Prus- of reconnecting with past ethical systems sians, and consequently, they spoke Ger- and rules. man and converted to Lutheranism, which separated them from the Polish majority of Roman Catholics. As Rose shows, after World War II, the were threat- 4 Szpulak also identifies the film as being, among other genres, a melodrama. However, he uses the term in ened with the confiscation of their proper- a rather reductionist fashion, defining it as a ties, in order to force them to leave the land sentimentalist and simplified account of romantic love (Szpulak 2016: 51). and relocate to . The efforts of 5 Szpulak’s discussion of this issue may seem rather the Communist authorities to remove this symptomatic. He writes: ‘The scenes of rape directly represent female suffering, however more importantly ‘suspicious ethnic’ element was supported they portray psychological suffering of the helpless by the ethnic Poles who were eager to take witness, the male.’ He continues this line of argument, ultimately claiming that the male protagonist, Tadeusz, over the Masurians’ farms and lands. The is established as the narrative focus of the film. repatriates from the Eastern Borderlands He even suggests that the film’s title Rose is somehow misleading (Szpulak 2016: 42; see also Dunin et al. of Poland, the region that was now incor- 2015). The critic’s interpretation demonstrates how porated into the Soviet Union, hoped to find deeply Polish culture has internalised (and naturalised) the national discourse of male suffering. Thus, ‘abandoned properties’ to compensate for my analysis does not only offer a critical reading the houses and farms they had lost. Rose of Smarzowski’s film, but also certain strategies employed by Polish film criticism. One of these features a family of such repatriates. On strategies is a distrust towards feminist approach. the one hand, they are kind-hearted peo- Although this negative stance seems to be losing its erstwhile prominence, it is still present as exemplified ple who empathise with Rose’s fate. On the by Szpulak’s book (Szpulak 2016: 74–75). other, when she dies, they unscrupulously 6 Agnieszka Morstin claims that the female protagonist is first a victim and only then a woman (Morstin occupy her farm despite it legally being part 2012: 206). In my opinion the gender factor is of of her daughter’s inheritance. At the end of paramount importance as the film presents women as victims of sexual violence. the film, after being released from prison,

42 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE Tadeusz returns to the farm, but does not one of the most persistent myths of post- attempt to reclaim it from the family. He war Poland regarding the Eastern Border- and Jadwiga simply leave. Mroz succinctly lines and the Poles inhabiting these lands. points out: For decades, they were consistently por- trayed as kind-hearted people who spoke a Róża does not … end on an sweetly accented and were unambiguous vision of a newly expelled from the national ‘paradise lost’ homogenised country; instead, of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. In con- Tadeusz and Jadwiga are seen trast, Smarzowski’s film depicts them as walking away from the old home- petty-minded greedy people who live their stead, arm in arm, across fields, lives according to strict patriarchal norms determinedly but without clear that make a ‘dishonoured woman’ of any direction and without any indica- female victim of a wartime rape. Arguably, tion of a newly established and Rose subtly, yet persistently, challenges settled ‘home’. The film ends the national narrative of the war experience in movement rather than with along with various positionalities newly established borders. ascribed to it. (Mroz 2016: 67) The narrative of Rose is centred on the theme of displacement in the most gen- Similarly, Izabela Kalinowska remarks eral sense. While explaining the political that Tadeusz is ‘an exile in his own land’ and historical contexts of Smarzowski’s (Kalinowska 2016: 128) and Jadwiga joins film, Mroz emphasises that the people mi- him in his figurative and literal home- grating to the Masurian Lakes were un- lessness. Mroz attributes this inability to able to integrate into any community, and recover or establish a new home to the therefore, remained, for much of the time, Soviet authorities, which in Rose, are pre- a group temporarily inhabiting the land. As sented as the sole and ubiquitous source she notes, ‘[a] sense of displacement rather of evil. She claims that Smarzowski’s film than settlement was thus pervasive, of frac- articulates the dominant Polish cinematic ture rather than homogeneity’ (Mroz 2016: approach to history that identifies the Pol- 62–63). Thus, first and foremost, she as- ish nation solely as a victim of the war. signs the notion of displacement to the geo- She writes, ‘in Róża, it is Soviet author- political outcome of World War II. It could be ity and colonial power that is demonized’ argued that this geopolitical displacement (Mroz 2016: 63; see also Dunin et al. 2015, also caused a displacement of the pre-war Szpulak 2016: 157). Indeed, the Soviets are ethical norms that regulated life in pre- presented as an embodiment of evil, how- 1939 multi-ethnic Poland. The film ponders ever the Poles are not presented only as the moral ambiguity inherent in the expe- victims. The director does not include any rience of an individual exile, tacitly imply- scenes of direct Polish violence towards ing that it does not necessarily result in the the Masurian ethnic minority, but he does passive, yet noble, acceptance of homeless- not shy away from depicting their hostil- ness. For the repatriates, as Smarzowski ity and cold indifference to them. Most shows them, are eager to build new homes importantly, the portrayal of the repatriates no matter the moral consequences. from the Eastern Borderline as a popu- The geopolitical displacement in lation that was expelled from their own Rose is juxtaposed with a less tangible homes, and consequently, expelled oth- bodily displacement, which could be even ers from theirs, reveals a moral ambiguity more damaging in terms of its effects. Both related to the actions of all participants in the film’s violent imagery and narrative the forced post-war migratory movements. content demonstrate how a wartime rape This negative, or at least ambivalent, pic- expels women from their own bodies. ture of the Eastern repatriates challenges More generally, the film explores how

43 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE abrupt historical change is inscribed on the victim of evil forces and this classification female body, leaving a wound that cannot provides a basis for moral judgement. be healed. Rose employs a melodramatic The visibility of suffering in melodrama mode of representation to restage the can be seen as contributing to what Sara brutal end of the pre-war multi-ethnic Ahmed and Jackie Stacey call a ‘testimo- Poland and the beginning of the national- nial culture’ in which the wound serves as istic Communist state. Melodrama, as ‘an a sign of identity (Ahmed, Stacey 2001). intense emotional and ethical drama based As Ahmed explains, testimonial culture on the Manichaeistic struggle between is ‘the culture of compensation, where all good and evil’ (Brooks 1976: 12–13), proves forms of injury are assumed to involve rela- capable of containing the rapid and often tions of innocence and guilt, and where it is inexplicable changes of erstwhile social assumed that responsibility for all injuries hierarchies and systems of values. In Rose, can be attributed to an individual or collec- the melodramatic affect serves to work tive’ (Ahmed 2004: 32). Due to its historical through the female traumas rather than experience, Polish culture has developed the national traumas of World War II and as a ‘testimonial culture’, which is notably its aftermath. manifest in its Romantic paradigm in which the national (male) subject establishes its SUFFERING AND identity through wounds and suffering (see MELODRAMATIC JUSTICE Caes 2003, Ostrowska 2016). Suffering from In her reconsideration of the genre of melo- historical traumas (of partitions, wars, the drama, Linda Williams claimed that the Communist regime) that are inscribed on melodramatic mode of representation his body, the Polish national (male) subject, had permeated various genres of popular ‘become[s] invested in the wound, such Hollywood cinema. For this mode of cin- that the wound comes to stand for identity ema invariably privileges the figure of an itself’ (Ahmed 2004: 32). Polish post-war innocent victim whose suffering is meant cinema has significantly contributed to the to affect the viewer and to produce, ulti- formation of such a subject through fore- mately, the effect of pathos (Williams 1998). grounding the wounded and suffering male According to Augustín Zarzosa, suffering is body. In Rose, Smarzowski reverses the the most recognisable element of a melo- logic of this representation by foreground- dramatic universe. Taking some inspiration ing a suffering and wounded female body from Brooks, he rejects the former’s claim of someone who belongs to the Masurian that in melodrama ‘suffering becomes a ethnic minority. Thus, the film renegotiates means – a mechanism – to prove the exist- the limits of the Polish ‘testimonial culture’ ence of virtue and evil’ (Zarzosa 2013: 17). in an attempt to include the various ethnic Instead, he argues that and religious minorities. Arguably, using the convention of melodrama with its distribu- the duo of virtue and evil is simply tion of visible suffering, Smarzowski’s film one of the mechanisms through opens up a textual space for subaltern sub- which melodrama redistributes jects that have previously been excluded the visibility of suffering. Melo- from the dominant national narratives.7 drama shifts the sense of vir- Instead of the national scenarios of tue and evil to determine whose suffering is rendered visible or 7 Izabela Kalinowska recognises Smarzowski’s legitimate, and whose is rendered engagement with the ethnic conflicts within Polish community, which he sees as everything but not a invisible or abstract. (Zarzosa homogeneous entity: ‘Smarzowski, who hails from 2013: 17) the once multi-ethnic Eastern Poland, is very attuned to the potential for violence that exists in neighbourly relations. He is also cognizant of the long-term In other words, if cinema makes one’s traumatizing effects of historical events that turn ethnic and religious communities against each other’ suffering visible it defines the person as a (Kalinowska 2016: 121).

44 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE heroism and images of wounds inflicted there is a noticeable manipulation of the upon embattled male bodies, Rose presents standard sound hierarchy. Although the female wounds and pain. soundtrack includes some realistic sounds, these are mixed with non-diegetic sound EMBODIED (FEMALE) effects and music that together produce a SUFFERING AND THE near-cacophonic effect. Mikołaj Trzaska’s DISEMBODIED (MALE) GAZE score, which is heard during the prologue, Rose signals its departure from the domi- is not the typical symphonic music used nant binary logic of war discourse with its to build up dramatic effect; rather, it is a opening credits sequence. The film begins sequence of dull sounds that do not pro- with a prologue inserted into the opening duce any identifiable harmonic structure. credits. The first shot is a medium close-up Katarzyna Dzida-Hamela, the sound direc- of Tadeusz in his military uniform, lying on tor of Rose, aptly notes that Trzaska’s dusty ground surrounded by ruins. He is score has a ‘specific timbre, non-classical semi-conscious and his face is covered with form and it expresses “states” rather than blood. The hand-held camera is moving only action.’ Further she comments: ‘The scenes slightly, without the conventional shaki- of cruelty, rapes, and violence are filled ness used to produce the effect of semi- up with unexpected “blows” of sound and documentary footage. It never occupies a the cascades of the “off-musical” sounds perceptually privileged position, as if mim- of a saxophone’ (Dzida-Hamela 2015: 15). icking the immobility and lack of narrative While explaining the general concept of agency of the male character. He is looking the sound she conceived for Rose, Dzida- off-screen. (Figure 1) After a while, the film Hamela indicates that she was mostly cuts to a long shot of two German soldiers inspired by Smarzowski’s non-classical raping a woman. When it cuts back to Tade- modes of both narration and editing. She usz, there is a subtle, yet noticeable eye-line further explains that, in Rose, fragments mismatch and, thus, the shot of the woman of the same or similar shots are linked being raped cannot be identified as his POV together without using inserts or a shot/ shot. The camera takes up a position that is reverse shot sequence as is prescribed by very close to the male character, yet it does the continuity editing system. Furthermore, not identify with his gaze. This sequence of she says that Smarzowski eliminated mul- shots produces an effect that I would call tiple frames from a single shot that pro- ‘disembodied intimacy’ in that the camera duced the effect of a jump cut. In general, stays very close to the character’s body, yet the visual information is condensed and its point of view indicates a distance from limited to a minimum in order to intensify it. This initial subtle form of discontinuous cinematic time (Dzida-Hamela 2015: 15). editing, along with the lack of a conventional To parallel this discontinuous editing pat- establishing shot, prevents the emergence tern, Dzida-Hamela decided to use similarly of a consistent narrative space with clearly discontinuous sound, and to create ‘parallel inscribed gender positions. sound collisions’ (Dzida-Hamela 2015: 15). Furthermore, the prologue also The prologue introduces such contrapun- manipulates the image–sound relationship tal sound that establishes a kind of formal to block the effect of conventional seam- matrix that is employed throughout the less realism.8 Throughout the sequence, film. Arguably, the use of non-transparent 8 I am using the term ‘seamless realism’ as it is cinematic codes in the prologue of Rose commonly used in film studies. In Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Susan Hayward distinguishes moves it away from the generic conventions two types of film realism: ‘First, seamless realism, of a standard war film or realistic histori- whose ideological function is to disguise the illusion of realism. [---] Nothing in the camera-work, the use cal drama. The brutal imagery that is not of lighting, colour, sound or editing draws attention embedded within the coherent narrative to the illusionistic nature of the reality effect’ (Hayward 2004: 311–312). appears to be a pure display of violence

45 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE against women. Due to the prominence of image, it is the mediated nature of what we sound as an affective equivalent and con- are seeing that helps bring us toward an tainment of the events,9 the limits of the ethical engagement with the image’ (Brown visual representation of suffering are fore- 2013: 28). In his discussion of extreme cin- grounded and probed. The occasional privi- ema, Scott Mackenzie also emphasises the leging of sound over image in the opening importance of its ethical aspect. He traces scene reinvents the original form of theatri- the genealogy of this tendency in the recent cal melodrama in which music was used to cinema that first emerged in France during express emotions. The lack of dialogue, and the 1990s as cinéma brut to Bertolt Brecht’s difficulty of identifying sounds of atonal theory of alienation and Antonin Artaud’s music, aesthetically estranges the scene of concept of ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ (Mackenzie rape, blocking the effect of seamless real- 2010: 163). In the case of the latter, the ism. Consequently, the scene prevents the theatrical spectacle was meant to produce presentation of the raped woman through an effect of spectatorial shock leading to the prism of what Sarah Hagelin identifies moral recognition. ‘In the context of cinéma as ‘sentimental vulnerability’, which makes brut, this shock is related to the production women ‘especially vulnerable to pain and of violence against women and its at times injury, and reads pain and injury as debili- problematic and complex relationship to tating to the female subject’ (Hagelin the representation of sexuality’ (Mackenzie 2013: 3). 2010: 163). The non-transparent cinematic codes Although Smarzowski has never of the prologue suggest that a wartime declared an affinity with extreme cin- rape is an event that cannot be contained ema, Rose as well as his other films, share within the standard modes of cinematic some characteristics with cinéma brut,10 representation and language communica- which is especially manifest in the rape tion. As Elaine Scarry notes, ‘[p]hysical pain scenes. However, unlike the French films, does not simply resist language but actively Smarzowski does not use long takes to destroys it, bringing about an immediate present these acts of violence against reversion to a state anterior to language, to women. Instead of this realism-enhancing the sounds and cries a human being makes camera work, he employs discontinuous before language is learned’ (Scarry 1985: 4). editing that is aimed at spectatorial shock. Following Scarry’s line of argument, Sara The first scene of Rose’s rape is presented Ahmed argues that an abundance of cul- from Tadeusz’s perspective. While work- tural images evoking bodily pain testify to ing in the field, he sees a Soviet motorbike its unrepresentability (Ahmed 2004: 22). Rose explores the possibility of overcoming 10 In her essay, Kalinowska emphasises the extreme these limitations through the non-standard forms of bodily violence present in Smarzowski’s film. use of sound, but also by means of employ- She provides a detailed description of this transgressive imagery used in The Wedding (Wesele, ing devices typical of extreme cinema. Wojtek Smarzowski, Poland, 2004): ‘While the wedding According to William Brown, extreme guests imbibe gallons of vodka, bodily fluids spill out: the mobster shoots Wojnar’s finger, the cameraman – cinema consists ‘of graphic depictions of the bride’s former lover – is beaten to a pulp, some sex, violence, and sexual violence’ (Brown guests engage in sexual acts, while others, afflicted with diarrhea, line up to use the filthy bathroom. 2013: 27). He emphasises that, in this This revolting orgy of abjection threatens to obliviate type of cinema, it is not only the specific the boundaries that mark out what we habitually refer to as civilized human behavior, and thereby to image content, but also distinct formal undermine the existing social order’ (Kalinowska 2016: organisation of this content: ‘…while scenes 122–123). As she argues these images are always aimed at producing a spectatorial shock that will of explicit sexual violence do make us ques- resonate with the viewers’ ethical system. Likewise, tion the veridical nature or otherwise of the Szpulak also recognises the significance of the excessive representation of violence in Rose, claiming that it originates in ‘black romanticism’ as represented 9 In her article, Morstin also emphasises the significance by E. T. A. Hoffman or Edgar Allan Poe and its Polish of the emotional aspect of the opening scene (Morstin variant as represented by Antoni Malczewski and 2012: 204). Seweryn Goszczyński (Szpulak 2016: 101–102).

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Wojtek Smarzowski, Rose (Róża, Poland, 2011).

FIGURE 1. The first shot of Tadeusz (Marcin Dorociński).

FIGURE 2. The mass rape of Masurian women by Soviet soldiers.

47 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE approaching the house. When he starts subjective and objective narration. In the running towards it, Smarzowski utilises initial close-up shot, Rose looks off-screen the aforementioned discontinuity editing and the next shot reveals that she is looking method (see Dzida-Hamela 2015: 15). In at the window of a nearby building. Behind the scene’s first shot, the camera is located it we can see a blurred silhouette, which behind Tadeusz as he looks at the bike. later turns out is her daughter Jadwiga. Instead of cutting to a close-up of him, and Then, there is another cut, and the girl’s following with a standard reaction shot, he subjective high angle long shot reveals the is shown as frantically leaving the frame. actual scale of the sexual violence being Then there are two brief shots that pro- perpetrated.11 As there is barely any narra- duce an illusion of continuous movement, tive context for the scene, the rapid change yet upon closer inspection, it is clear that of camera distance between close-ups and multiple frames have been removed in the long shots swiftly shifts the spectatorial process of editing, which breaks his move- positioning from emotional engagement ment through space into incompatible frag- to detachment. ments. This sequence of discontinuous Although, in the rape scene, Rose images becomes relatively stabilised when along with other women experiences vio- Tadeusz enters the house and sees a Soviet lence and pain, her sharp gaze directed soldier mounting Rose’s body. However, the at the space where her daughter is hiding handheld camera maintains its instability, manifests her ability to distance herself and as the scene ends, the image of Rose from the situation, and even, to seemingly is reflected in a broken mirror, which rein- control it. With her silent gaze, she seems forces the initial effect of the fragmenta- to be saying to her child ‘stay there, you tion produced by editing. The soundtrack, are safe there’. The commanding gaze she as described above by Dzida-Hamela, pro- maintains during the rape scene prevents duces the effect of a loud clangour colliding the viewers from feeling pity for her charac- with the woman’s scream. ter; instead they are most likely to respond Similarly, in the scene depicting the with shock and rage. Thus, Rose represents collective rape of the Masurian women by what Hagelin calls a ‘resistant vulnerabil- Soviet soldiers, Smarzowski employs a ity’ which ‘suggests that we alter our basic montage of disconnected images accompa- assumption that a suffering body is vul- nied by cacophonic music over the muffled nerable and needs our pity and protection’ diegetic screams of the women and male (Hagelin 2013: 4). This scene, and many laughter. The scene is introduced later as others that present suffering bodies, put Rose’s flashback, yet she is unable to pre- the viewers’ cultural sensibilities on trial, sent it in a narratively coherent way. She specifically their ‘fear [of] divorcing pity can only say: ‘When the Russians came … from pain’ (Hagelin 2013: 4). They would all the time’ and then raises Another rape attack upon Rose hap- hands to her face as if trying to cover her pens after she has been diagnosed with eyes. The following chaotic juxtaposition of cancer. It is preceded by a scene depicting long shots and close-ups contrasts with a the prolonged pain that the illness is caus- somehow unnaturally well-ordered place- ing. Once again, Tadeusz is not at home ment of female figures within the frame when the Soviet soldiers invade it. Upon space. The women are lying in an even row and the bodies of the rapist soldiers move 11 Justyna Jaworska also recognises the importance of rhythmically, almost in unison. In addition, the rape scene being presented through the female, rather than male gaze (Jaworska 2012: 65, n. 2). all the men are making the same gesture, In contrast, in their discussion of the film, three Polish covering the women’s mouths with feminist critics identify the rape scenes as ‘porno- graphic’. In their discussion of Rose, which is almost their hands to stop them from screaming. exclusively limited to the analysis of the narrative (Figure 2) The constantly changing camera content, they conclude that Smarzowski’s film fails to convey female subjectivity and it privileges the male angle and distance alternate between the protagonist (Dunin et al. 2015).

48 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE his arrival he sees Rose being assaulted. Smarzowski’s Rose does not perpetuate Tadeusz’s inability to protect a woman – the binary gender logic in the war discourse first his wife and then Rose – demonstrates as described by Froula. The film offers nei- that wartime rape involves both gender and ther a mythical man-making narrative nor ethnic/national oppression. The authors an actual process of women’s un-making of an introduction to an anthology Rape in through the act of sexual violence. The Wartime comment on this double subordi- opposite rather occurs in that the male pro- nation: tagonist does not represent any narrative agency supporting the normative notion Wartime rape … produces a rela- of masculinity. While his body is also sub- tionship of inequality between jected to violence, it is not elevated through two kinds of men: those who heroic death. Thus, the film presents the assert their physical and societal un-making process of both female and virility by committing the assault male bodies. In consequence, both their and those for whom this same act violated bodies represent the previously represents a symbolic castration mentioned ‘resistant vulnerability’ that owing to their inability to protect ‘proves that vulnerability needn’t be gen- their wives, sisters or mothers. dered female’ and ‘abused women … don’t (Branche et al. 2012: 4) want our pity’ (Hagelin 2013: 4). Moreover, Rose and Tadeusz reclaim their violated Although the film is focused on the female bodies in their erotic relationship. Rose’s body in pain, the suffering male body is also suffering body again becomes, even if very significantly foregrounded. When Tadeusz briefly, a source of erotic pleasure. gets hurt during one of the Soviet attacks on the farm, Rose gently tends his wounds, THE BIKE, THE BOAT, AND almost mimicking his earlier affective ges- THE KNIFE – THE RE-MAKING tures in caring for her body. Moreover, later OF THE FEMALE BODY in the film, when the Communist authorities The brief episode of Rose riding her bicycle arrest him, there is a prolonged sequence together with her daughter is preceded by a of his torture. In the film’s epilogue, when scene depicting the first visit of the Eastern Tadeusz returns to the farm to take care repatriates. They come to introduce them- of Rose’s daughter, he is hardly recognis- selves as new neighbours, bringing a bottle able. He is bald, with a long grey beard of homemade alcohol and some food. Tade- and his disfigured nose protrudes from his usz pours the vodka into the glasses per- face, signifying his abused body. His cloth- forming the traditional role of a male host. ing, especially the scarf that covers his In contrast, Rose does not behave in the head, his shapeless trousers and jacket, way usually expected of a hostess. Instead ultimately prevent his body from signifying of serving food to the guests, she sits with masculine virility. (Figure 3) Although his them at the table and smiles. (Figure 4) body most probably did not suffer sexual At some point Tadeusz sits next to Rose and violence, it was nevertheless abused and embraces her tightly. She does not protest, this visibly affects its sexual attractiveness just rests her head on his shoulder and and potential. Unlike his cinematic prede- their bodies become more closely entwined, cessors, he does not die a heroic death. To a fact that is noticed by their guests. The a certain extent, both the female and male woman (Kinga Preis) says to her husband protagonists of Smarzowski’s film are dis- (Jacek Braciak): ‘Look, Władek. Like two placed from their sexual bodies. Both bod- turtledoves…’ to which he responds ‘Well … ies are ‘caught up in the symbolic significa- like us once’ and starts tickling his wife to tion of terror and ruination’ (Gusain 2008: her apparent delight. This is followed by a 36). brief episode in which Tadeusz shares some potatoes with Władek, which symbolises

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Wojtek Smarzowski, Rose (Róża, Poland, 2011).

FIGURE 3. Tadeusz’s emasculated body.

FIGURE 4. The first visit of the Eastern repatriates.

50 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE the establishment of a neighbourly bond used. In the first, Rose is tending to the and solidarity. wounds and bruises Tadeusz has received In the next episode Tadeusz goes fish- from the Soviet soldiers whom he encoun- ing. On his way home, non-diegetic music tered on his way home. In a long static shot, with a slow female vocal begins to play. she is standing over him carefully cleaning As he approaches the house, the camera and disinfecting his face and body. Argu- starts circling his body. In the next shot, ably, she is behaving in exactly the same we see Rose and her daughter sharing a way as he did earlier when he was taking bike. The ride is evidently as awkward as care of her body while it was in pain. Thus, it is enjoyable for both of them. Their con- both male and female bodies are presented stant struggle to maintain their balance as first being ‘un-made’ by the enemies and looks exhilarating rather than frighten- then being ‘re-made’ by careful gestures ing. Tadeusz attempts to join in and share of care and love. This bodily symmetry and their joy. First, he takes the handlebars and balance are also mirrored in the following drags the bicycle forward. Then we see him episode of erotic nocturnal intimacy. Rose cycling, with Rose sitting on the frame and and Tadeusz are in bed, and again, there is her daughter on the baggage rack. Appar- a long take of their close-up that is main- ently, three persons on one bike are too tained throughout the entire episode. They many, and after a while, only Rose and her occupy the same amount of screen space daughter are riding, with Tadeusz walk- and the low-key available lighting renders ing awkwardly next to them. His stork-like their faces barely visible, which curtails the steps produce a rather funny spectacle of a voyeuristic pleasure of the viewer. Rose ini- man, who only a short while ago, was acting tiates the intimacy. However, she suddenly as both a responsible provider and protec- stops and moves away from Tadeusz as if tor of his family. (Figure 5) Importantly, the she was unable to overcome her trauma. scene does not transform into a moment He passively accepts this and does not try of erotically charged intimacy for the cou- to get closer to her. Despite the fact that ple. It ends as it started with Rose and her this bodily intimacy does not lead to sexual daughter enjoying their biking adventure. fulfilment, Rose’s erotic initiative can Here, the women are organising entertain- be seen as another attempt to ‘re-make’ ment for themselves. Their joy demon- her raped and violated body.12 Arguably, strates that they are experiencing their bike she is trying to re-attain her bodily ride almost like the first women who used agency. these ‘machines’ – ‘delighting in the sense However, Rose’s attempts to regain of mobility and freedom’ (Wosk 2001: 89). control of her body are in vain. Before long, Indeed, the bike in this episode appears to she is diagnosed with cancer of the uterus be a ‘freedom machine’ as dubbed by the and her body is suffering again. Again, historian Robert A. Smith (quoted in Penn Tadeusz tends to her body trying to lessen 2010: 6). Importantly, the bike episode uses the pain with analgesic injections. These fast and dynamic editing just like the ear- provide only temporary relief to Rose’s suf- lier rape scenes did. Employing the same fering body, and the pain returns more cinematic devices to depict both bodily intensely and severely. Importantly, she suffering and bodily pleasure establishes uses the rare intervals between the bouts the female body as the site of both experi- of pain to experience bodily pleasure in the ences and, thus marks the film’s resistance same way she most likely did before the to transformation into a national allegory war. After one of these frequent painful founded exclusively on the innocent, but nights, she wakes Taduesz early in the violated, female body. In two short, but important, episodes that occur soon thereafter a style that dif- 12 Szpulak also discusses Rose’s narrative agency, however he does not examine its bodily manifestation fers radically from the bicycle scene is (Szpulak 2016: 39–40).

51 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE morning and asks him to follow her. Now she asserts herself, fights back and Together with her daughter, they take him succeeds.13 (Figure 6) on a fishing expedition. Rose is rowing, her Soon Rose’s health deteriorates. On daughter is steering the boat, and Tade- her deathbed, with the pastor as her wit- usz is sitting, enjoying the journey. When ness, she asks Jadwiga to marry Tadeusz. the boat stops, Rose’s daughter Jadwiga is After the girl silently nods in acceptance fishing. Both women are capable of using of her mother’s wish, Rose asks Tadeusz their bodies to perform work that is tradi- whether he also accepts her plan. He also tionally associated with masculinity. They silently nods to express his consent. After are able to move freely across space from she dies, the pastor returns to perform a one place to another, and they are capable funeral ritual in German, despite his ear- of acquiring food for themselves. In a sense, lier declaration that he would be perform- they are self-sufficient. They decide to take ing all prayers in Polish, as requested by Tadeusz on this trip not to get help from the new Communist authorities. Along him, but to share this joyous moment with with Tadeusz, Jadwiga, the pastor, and an him. Like the earlier scene of the bike ride, older Masurian couple also attend Rose’s this is also accompanied by muted diegetic funeral. Their participation in Rose’s funeral sound, repeating the musical motif used is ambiguous. On the one hand, while she previously, which is peaceful, yet due was alive, she was somewhat detached to the low pitch sound, also somewhat from her community, and on the other disconcerting. hand, she is mourned by its members, The most radical and significant which surely confirms her attachment to attempt at exercising female bodily agency it. Thus, the mourning ritual can be seen as occurs in the scene of the last rape. As was an act that recognises her Masurian iden- often the case in earlier scenes, Tadeusz tity that was questioned by both her Polish returns home from town too late to prevent neighbours, who saw her as German, and by the Soviet soldiers from violating Rose’s the Soviet violators who, with their massive home. This time it is not only Rose who is an acts of rape, transformed her into a generic object of sexual violence, but also Amelia, female body capable of providing them with the repatriate from the East, who after their instant gratification of their sexual drive. new house was incinerated by the Sovi- An extreme long shot of her funeral proces- ets, is staying with her family at the home sion moving through a desolate winter field of hospitable neighbours. When the Soviet marks her final and ultimate decision to soldiers arrive, Władek is unable to pro- stay in the land from which she was to be tect the women and both are raped. After expelled by the new Communist authori- returning home, Tadeusz drags the attacker ties. Unlike most of the female allegories away from Rose, yet he cannot subdue of motherland, Rose’s body serves, not as him. Suddenly, Rose appears armed with a a site of inscription for hegemonic national knife and enters the fray attempting to help narrative, but rather as an embodiment of Tadeusz. Although she is sick and weak, for the counterhegemonic historical experience the first time, she does not passively accept of the marginalised subjects marked with the violence, but decides to fight back. The both gender and ethnic difference. If the Soviet soldier violently pushes her away new Communist authorities wanted to un- and is just about to hit Tadeusz with an axe make Rose’s Masurian identity, her funeral, when he is felled by a gunshot that comes as planned by her, is a post-mortem act of from off-screen. The next shot shows Jad- its re-making. Importantly, in Rose’s char- wiga, gun in hand. The image reverses acter no single aspect of her identity, be it the one from Rose’s flashback, when national, gender, class, religious or ethnic, her daughter, hiding behind the curtain, observed her mother being raped along with 13 See Szpulak’s comments on the scene as demonstrating female narrative agency (Szpulak 2016: several other women through a window. 151).

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Wojtek Smarzowski, Rose (Róża, Poland, 2011).

FIGURE 5. Two women and a bike.

FIGURE 6. Rose’s daughter, Jadwiga (Malwina Buss), fights back.

53 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2018 / VOLUME 6 / ARTICLE dominates over the others. Her character melodrama and extreme cinema, Rose is presented as a constantly changing con- presents the female body as resisting stellation of various identities that do not a singular ideological inscription, instead always come to terms with one another, portraying it as submitting to the gen- but instead produce various ruptures and dered violence of war, and simultaneously, tensions. resisting it. Although Smarzowski’s Rose is ‘exposing human bodies to violence as a CONCLUSION hermeneutic structure for configuring con- As Matthew Evangelista notes in his book temporary stories and history’, like many Gender, Nationalism, and War: Conflict on other recent films (De Pascalis 2016: 366), the Movie Screen, ‘Women serve as “bound- it still offers affective structures that map ary makers” between different national, out the emotional topographies of war. ethnic, and religious communities, and thus might be expected to play an important role when such communities come into violent conflict’ (Evangelista 2011: 1). However, in Smarzowski’s film, Rose problematises these differences rather than reinforc- ing them. As she represents the German- speaking Masurian ethnic minority prac- ticing a Protestant religion, she cannot be embedded into any singular nationalistic discourse. Arguably, her identity might be located somewhere between Polish, Ger- man and Masurian. Therefore, the repeated acts of rape upon her body cannot be alle- gorised as the ‘rape of the motherland’.14 Instead, these are acts of male violence against an individual female body as they occur in a specific historical situation. In that sense, the character of Rose resists her body being appropriated by the national discourse and its collective post-traumatic narratives. Instead it ‘reside[s] on a spec- trum between relative fixity and radical flux’ (Richardson 2016: 34–35). As Michael Rich- ardson explains, this bodily potential for change and transition seems to be where ‘bodies are most intensely realized. Such change is not necessarily concerned with transformation of form, but rather with an openness to potential that generates and activates the body’s relations to the world’ (Richardson 2016: 35). Using the radically contrasting aesthetic conventions of

14 In her article ‘War Spectacles of Rape’, Patrycja Cembrzyńska claims that ‘[p]olitical instrumenta- lisation of rape, transforming a raped woman into a national cause, is an appropriation of the rape victims’ (Cembrzyńska 2014: 139). Rose’s hybrid identity prevents such appropriation.

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