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| Franciszka Themerson in Europa |
we, who drag along the streets
our queue of sunken bellies
our powerless fists
stuffing our pockets
we shall, lose, lose, lose… as always
Taking a mid-week break from the digital Pordenone for and
actual trip to the actual, in the flesh, first night of the BFI London Film
Festival and the screening of a film not seen since 1933; a World Premier of
its restored version no less, followed by a second screening. Europa was
the first film made by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, two radical minded
Polish artists who believed in the political importance of art at a time of
confusion.
This was an extraordinary session, not just in terms of the content
but also the context and the line up of speakers, led by William Fowler, BFI
National Archive Curator, who advised us that this was – apart from everything else
– the first screening of this year’s festival (although Idris Elba missed it
being otherwise occupied at the Royal Festival Hall) and as such a fine example
of collaborative restoration and historical import, it deserved to be.
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| Jasia Reichardt shows pages from the Themersons scrap book |
After Will’s introduction we saw Jasia Reichardt, a renowned
Polish film historian and programmer – with a CV to make your mind melt - who first
met the Themersons as a child when she was more impressed with their cats than
anything else. She stayed friendly with the couple throughout their lives, all
three much travelled from home after the rise of Nazi Germany. After the couple
died in 1988, she has curated their collection and showed us elements of a
precious scrap book they kept illustrating not only their method and purpose – including
some lost films – but also reviews and contemporary reaction.
She’s already published a 6KG collection of their works and
one hopes this extraordinary diary sees the light of day too. She started off
quoting President Macron’s warning about the rise of right wing thought in
Europe and couldn’t think of a better time for her friends’ film to be
restored.
The Nazis took all five of the Themerson’s films in 1940 and
the family had always expected them all lost for good and yet, as another
presenter, Anne Webber, Co-Chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, pointed
out, Hitler’s regime suppressed a lot but actually destroyed very little of
what they stole. This meant there was always a chance that films like this can
show up, lost, in this case in Nazi and then East German archives before the Themerson’s
niece and heir Jasia Reichardt learned from Poland’s Pilecki Institute that a
copy might be in Germany’s Bundesarchiv in 2019.
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| Our replica of Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnower's 1929 booklet |
From then on there has been an international effort to
restore the film and to even add music from Lodewijk Muns who’s pre-recorded
introduction explained his approach to the composition, all of which was, erm,
music to the ears of silent film aficionados. He aimed to compliment the visuals
using the instrumentation and style of the period and not to create his own narrative
distractions for source material of tremendous historical significance but
which also does not have anything like a typical narrative to riff with or indeed
off. He succeeds but, even after two viewings on the night, this is a film
which requires further study.
So important was the lost film considered that two attempts
were made to reconstruct it in the eighties, firstly Europa Reconstruction
(1983/4) by the Themersons and then Europa II directed by Piotr Zarebski in
1988. Both were screened tonight but, for obvious reasons, didn’t compare with
the emotional hit of the first film.
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| Europa (1931) (c) Themerson Estate |
Europa was based on a poem from Anatol Stern publishing in Reflektor
magazine in 1925, it was then published as a book in 1929 designed by two
avant-garde artists Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnower and then used as a
handout with the first screenings of the film in 1932 and again a replica was
given to all attendees of tonight’s event.
They feed us
They feed us
They pour down our throats
Food for the spirit!!
500 metres of trichinae of sermons
Faded tapeworms of newspapers
Sweet
Virulent
Bacilli of words…
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| Europa (1931) (c) Themerson Estate |
The poem is about social crisis, loss of moral equity, with
Europe at the edge of a precipice. Stern described it: ‘my dry chronicle
devoted to the tragedy, the misery, the wisdom and the wickedness of Europe’
although I’m not sure he was specifically discussing the Mail, Telegraph and
Sun… he might as well have been.
Stefan and Franciszka Themerson translated these words into
moving images with photograms and collages… they did later consider adding a
score having used Tchaikovsky’s music, and so, in some ways Muns faced a
similar challenge of interpretation. Music, film and poem together create a
more defined understanding.
The film opens with bleached negatives of grass and flower growing
– the Themersons had grass growing between two paving stones in their apartment
so they could show it slowly forcing its way through; nature will out.
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| Europa (1931) (c) Themerson Estate |
Then we see a lean worker, some knives and an overweight
businessman eating meat from various angles. The press, radio and other
speakers spout the divisive rhetoric mentioned above, some smile, others get
angry… more close ups of mastication, greasy lips, intercut with newspapers… a
man being force fed newsprint another smoking a cigar. 90 years on and we still
tell you not to fund hate and not to buy the Sun…
A gun appears a man falls to the ground, then we see what
looks like an x-ray of a beating heart, a recurring motif that was set up in
the Themersons house. Images of war, German soldiers from the Great War barbed
wire, then a naked man holding a cross and having nails banged through his palm
before we cut to dancing girls and the population being distracted.
It’s possible to stop start and dissect the rapid cuts and montage
now of course but following this all on screen in 1933, you’d feel a bit like
Alex in A Clockwork Orange: so much stimulation some almost too fast to process.
Did the Themersons invent subliminal messaging? Maybe that’s why their film
survived?
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| Europa (1931) (c) Themerson Estate |
Boxing – organised fighting – leads to another beating heart
pause before we see fish and a jellyfish… musical instruments then fruit and a
negative image of a man eating and apple. We’re assailed with apples sliced and
running on three production lines… knowledge? Or mass produced pseudo-knowlegde?
Numbers, maths, architecture dance or is it worship… nature
and stop-motion leaves. Apples on pavements… the grass growing tall, forcing
cracks… slowly our nature destroys order. Cities and towns, like trees, fall. People
running and afraid… disruption, a close up of naked women, repeated images from
earlier. A woman dives superimposed over the heart… the film finishes.
Europa is one to study for understanding especially as occasionally
the film is very literal in its interpretation of the poem, showing the “throng
of raging bacchantes…” as “One centimetre of my skin” even while it is mostly puzzles
your mind has to pattern.
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| Europa (1931) (c) Themerson Estate |
It stands alone as does the poem and now the music and taking
all three together in a packed NFT1 was potent indeed. The force of history
weighs down and is expressed through this film and it has meaning anew through
the very fact of its survival.
It’s a work of art we should celebrate and ignore at our
peril.
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| Europa reel original 35mm nitrate now at BFI National Archive |
.JPG)
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