The Party’s Unobvious Image: Film Stories about Lechosław Goździk, Leonard Borkowicz, and Tonia Lechtman

Abstract

The film representations of the Polish United Workers’ Party are most often inserted in the dichotomous world of values, with explicitly assigned assessments. This article is concerned with the films reflecting in a more complex way on the Party members’ fates, perceiving individual biographies, being open to various interpretations of the past and able to separate the assessment of the system and the activities of particular persons. When analyzing the film images of Lechosław Goździk, Leonard Borkowicz, and Tonia Lechtman: Metryka Goździka (Goździk’s certificate, 2002) by Joanna Tryniszewska-Obłoj and Joanna Pieciukiewicz, Tonia i jej dzieci (Tonia and her children, 2011) by Marcel Łoziński, and Bezsenność (Insomnia, 2012) by Andrzej Titkow, as well as 45–89 (1990) by Łoziński, I tried to reconstruct both the image of the heroes they contain and the form of filmic expression. The authors answer the questions about events and attitudes, but they do not strive for the precision of academic history. They take into account historical and political circumstances, however, they concentrate on individual experience and memory. The films rehabilitate neither the communist system nor the Polish United Workers’ Party. Yet, they allow us to see the examples of their internal complexity as well as some ways to talk about them.