With Julian Sands, Renée Soutendijk, Maciej Robakiewicz, Tadeusz Bradecki, Joachim Król
Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
At the time of writing this, I notice that this movie is not available on amazon; that's a shame because it is a powerful piece of work that stirs the heart and raises important questions.
First, a basic plot review:
Sands and Soutendijk are a newly married couple - Julian and Nina - visiting Poland to look after some family business concerns. He is a Uruguayan minor diplomat of German-Spanish parentage and I believe that she is depicted as a Brit though that is never quite clear.
Nina's hobby is photography and at the very beginning of the movie, her camera is stolen when they stopped on their journey to take photographs of the Polish countryside and peasants. Only later will the symbology of this event become clear; that a camera has the power to take a person's soul.
The couple proceed on their journey to a country estate belonging to a Polish diplomat. There are quite a few other guests present including members of the Polish diplomat's family, including his son, Stas (Maciej Robakiewicz), and a female cousins, the nun, Klementyna played by Maja Komorowska.
At dinner, a discussion of the possibility of war takes place with one of the diplomat's male cousins saying:
"Why don't you diplomats do something? Can't you see that war is coming?... Aggression is part of human nature; that is why there will always be war."
The host answers: "Part of some people's nature, perhaps."
The nun-cousin then says: "But if you really want, you can control your instincts. That's what Christianity teaches."
The host then says about the nun: "My cousin is on leave from her convent; she hasn't been well."
Julian responds to the question about war: "I don't believe war is inevitable. There are some small political problems, but they can be resolved with a little common sense..."
Stas declares that if there is war, he is prepared and willing to fight for Poland.
The next day, Nina and Julian go into the barn to visit the horses, which Nina loves, and while there, Julian hears a sound. He notices that there are two of the servants making love in the hay. He tries to get Nina to watch this activity with him, but she is upset at the earthy, primal lust and runs away. Julian pursues her and attempts to force her to make love with him in a horse stall, but a groom comes in and Nina is relieved to get away.
That night, Julian makes love to Nina in a brutal and animalistic way and it is clear that she not only does not enjoy it, but that she is deeply disturbed by it.
The following day, when all the guests are out riding, Nina is thrown from her horse. She is brought back to the house as if dead. Klementyna appears at the door of the bedroom to pray and tells Julian to "beseech god". He lifts her up from her knees and guides her from the room, closes the door and begins to sob at the thought of the loss of his bride. As he is crying, Nina sits up in the bed and says that she is fine. They go downstairs to find that the priest had been called to administer the last rites.
That night, the following exchange takes place between Julian and Nina:
"Do you remember anything about the fall?"
Nina: "Yes... and even somewhat... somehow... what would happen afterwards. I think I'm just imagining it... Did you think I was dead?" It is clear from the unusual way the scene is shot, with the actors shown in a mirror, illuminated only by candlelight and moonlight, that something very mysterious is attached to this remark of Nina's - that she can see the future.
The doctor orders Nina to remain at rest for at least a week and she suggests that Julian proceed on his journey without her.
The next day, more about Nina's new condition is revealed in a scene between her and Stas, once again, in the horse stall:
Nina: "Ive never been afraid of horses before...
Stas: "And now?"
Nina: "I'm starting to notice something elemental about them." (Smiles after uncomfortable pause) "I wish I could capture that quality in my pictures."
Nina gets Stas to accompany her home in Warsaw accompanied by Stas who has come to take Julian up on a job offer.
The Polish police come to the factory to inspect shipments of machine parts and Julian is curious about this, but considers it to be just normal "customs" issues.
In the evening, Nina and Julian attend the ballet. Afterward, another conversation that reveals that Nina is struggling with some sort of growing internal issues takes place:
Julian: "You so like ballet?"
Nina: "Yes I do. You obviously don't."
Julian: "The girls are not unattractive!"
Nina: "That's not what I meant.
Julian: "I know. I'm sorry. It's just that I don't have very much in common with tutus and pliés; it's all a bit artificial."
Nina: "Well, it's not meant to be real." (Long pause as Nina obviously is struggling with something inside.) "What you call reality is only an illusion. There must be something beyond that; something higher; something more perfect."
Julian: "Nina! That's all false! THIS is reality: me and you and our lives and trying to live decently and do good things not bad things... this is real..." (He begins to kiss her and nuzzle her breasts.)
Nina: (Pushes him away). "You aren't even trying to understand what I'm saying."
Julian: "It's not true." (Referring to the idea of another reality other than the everyday world.)
This conflict is the crux of the message of the movie. What IS reality?
The next day Nina goes on a sightseeing and photography expedition into the Jewish quarter. There she photographs two young girls. She wants to photograph an old woman, but the woman turns her back and Nina is overwhelmed by compassion for her pride in spite of her poverty and gives the woman her fur coat to replace the thin shawl that is all the woman has to keep her warm.
Stas soon discovers that the Germans are using the shipments to Julian's factory to smuggle guns in to arm the minority German population against the Poles. Stas wants to inform the Polish police. but Julian doesn't want to create animosity against himself on the part of the Germans or to attract bad publicity. Julian still doesn't understand that this is a fact-based indication that Germany really does indeed have plans to invade Poland and he orders Stas to not inform the Police. He still believes that diplomacy will solve all international issues. That night, Julian and his chauffeur take the guns out to a lake and dispose of them late at night.
Meanwhile, Nina is in her darkroom developing her photos of the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. Each time she tries to make a print of the photo of the two Jewish girls, the photo morphs into an image of piled up skulls and bodies, death and destruction. Nina realizes that she is seeing the coming reality.
At this point, Julian and the chauffeur return from their gun disposing expedition to find Nina in the basement darkroom in a near hysterical state. Julian leaves the chauffeur to clean up while he goes to comfort Nina. The chauffeur is last seen examining Nina's photo negatives hanging up to dry, including one of Stas.
Nina tries to explain to her pragmatic and materialistic husband what is wrong:
Nina: "I feel that something terrible's going to happen."
Julian: "To us?"
Nina: "To everyone."
Julian: "I've told you we can always go away from here."
Nina: "We can't. If people are suffering here, how can we run away?"
Nina then tells Julian that she has just heard that the nun they met at the diplomat's house where she had her accident has experienced a miracle: stigmata. She wants to go visit her. When she does, the nun tells her that the Bishop's envoy pronounced her stigmata to be hysteria, not a miracle, since the bleeding wound were not anatomically accurate.
Stas visits Julian as he and Nina are preparing to go out and tells him (with the chauffeur as a witness) that he feels that is is important to report the fact that the Germans are smuggling guns in to arm the Germans living in Poland. He is so insistent that Julian gets rough with him, shoving him down into a chair and shouting at him. Julian tells Stas that reporting the illegal arms shipments will only make the political situation worse since a treaty has recently been signed between Poland and Germany. Such a revelation at this point, about what Germany is really doing, would only hurt the peace process. It is clear that Julian's reality is quite distorted and based on wishful thinking. When Stas says he will report it anyway, Julian lets him know that he will not help by corroborating the story.
Nina also witnesses this scene and Julian brushes her questions aside with a shouted "I'll explain it later."
They go to the party where Julian is accosted by a German agent who lets him know that what he has done with the guns is not "patriotic" to Germany and that if he does not cooperate, he will be sorry. Julian is outraged at this attempt at coercion and he and Nina leave at once. He drops Nina off at the house and goes directly to his factory which has been set on fire. But, due to his quick action, there is little damage.
Meanwhile, Stas is assassinated by German agents.
Julian figures out that the only person who could have told the German agents about what he did with the illegal guns was his chauffeur. He returns home and demands an explanation. The man raises his hand in the Nazi salute and says "Heil Hitler." Julian begins to beat him. Nina hears the noise and walks in on this scene. Julian stops short of killing the man and orders him to pick up his wages and leave immediately. Nina points out that the man is bleeding and Julian shouts at her that he can get help at a pharmacy.
When Julian comes up to bed, Nina confronts him:
Nina: "Why did you beat him?"
Julian: (Shouting) "You don't know what he's been doing!"
Nina: "Beating people doesn't change anything.... Talk to me!
Julian: "What's the point in talking to you? You're always dreaming. You don't know anything about reality. Not THIS reality!"
Nina: "I do know about reality, but I don't want to be a part of it."
Julian: "You ARE a part of it, whether you like it or not! If you spent less time worrying about salvation you'd learn to cope with living!"
He then brutally rapes her anally. (The movie more or less presents this as his preferred sexual activity.)
The next morning, a maid knocks on the bedroom door. You see Nina leap out of the bed naked to dash to the bathroom. This strikes one as strange because it seems odd for her to not want to be seen in her own bed, where she has every right to be, by her own servant. Only later does the odd manner of her leaving the bed make sense.
The maid has come to inform Julian that the murder of Stas has been discovered. Julian goes to identify the body and learns that it is said to be a suicide and that a note and pornographic photos of Stas were found. Julian suggests that the photos were altered.
Julian is summoned home where he finds the maids crying and no one can tell him exactly what is wrong. Nina has, apparently, locked herself in the bathroom since early that morning and no one can get her to come out. Julian breaks the door and enters to find that Nina has gone completely psychotic.
It is at this point that Soutendijk's acting abilities shine. Her portrayal of her character through the various primitive psychiatric examinations of the time is stunning. Too bad she wasn't asked to play the madwoman-wife in Jane Eyre. I've never seen that part played with any conviction which is a big flaw in every version of it I've seen. Soutendijk apparently had ambitions to become an Olympic gymnast, and her gymnastic skills are used maximally in her scenes of madness.
But, back to Wherever You Are. The doctor, "Professor Steinberg," tells Julian that something in Nina's "soul" or "psyche" has "come unstuck."
It can be conjectured that Nina's head injury when she was thrown from the horse gave her some sort of "psychic ability," as has been reported in the cases of other psychics who acquire such talents after an accident, blow to the head, electric shock, etc. Her husband's unrealistic view of reality coupled with his insistence that the material reality is all that exists. opposes her own seeing of what is really going on beneath the surface as well as her spiritually realistic vision of the future. This destabilizes her and, without emotional support, she becomes completely unbalanced. She is sent to an asylum, with a brief recovery followed by a dramatic relapse into madness. Julian is obviously tortured by seeing his wife's suffering, but decides finally to leave her in an asylum in Poland while he returns to Uruguay. Right to the end, he does not believe that war will come. But it does, and Nina is murdered by the Nazis along with all the other patients at the clinic where Julian has consigned her to her death.
When the war is over, he returns to try to find out what happened to her, and weeps in despair. You don't know if he ever really understands anything at all.
It is very difficult to like the character that Sands plays because he has so few redeeming qualities. He's opinionated, materialistic, shallow, hypocritical and morally weak; all the while he believes that he is strong and knowledgeable, good and grounded in the REAL reality.
Nina's ability to see the REAL coming reality wrecks itself upon Julian's vehement belief that Germany will not go to war.
When the crunch came, he chose to leave his suffering wife behind to the Nazis rather than taking care of the woman he promised to love and cherish and care for "in sickness and in health."
The film is shot in a very "natural" style with warm autumn colors that hint at the occupation and persecution to come.
I have heard that the movie is based on a true story but am unable to find verification for that. In any event, I highly recommend this film because it has many thought-provoking qualities about how we view what is real, how we can be so "grounded" that we lose touch with reality, and how inspiration can guide us if only we will listen to it.
Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
At the time of writing this, I notice that this movie is not available on amazon; that's a shame because it is a powerful piece of work that stirs the heart and raises important questions.
First, a basic plot review:
Sands and Soutendijk are a newly married couple - Julian and Nina - visiting Poland to look after some family business concerns. He is a Uruguayan minor diplomat of German-Spanish parentage and I believe that she is depicted as a Brit though that is never quite clear.
Nina's hobby is photography and at the very beginning of the movie, her camera is stolen when they stopped on their journey to take photographs of the Polish countryside and peasants. Only later will the symbology of this event become clear; that a camera has the power to take a person's soul.
The couple proceed on their journey to a country estate belonging to a Polish diplomat. There are quite a few other guests present including members of the Polish diplomat's family, including his son, Stas (Maciej Robakiewicz), and a female cousins, the nun, Klementyna played by Maja Komorowska.
At dinner, a discussion of the possibility of war takes place with one of the diplomat's male cousins saying:
"Why don't you diplomats do something? Can't you see that war is coming?... Aggression is part of human nature; that is why there will always be war."
The host answers: "Part of some people's nature, perhaps."
The nun-cousin then says: "But if you really want, you can control your instincts. That's what Christianity teaches."
The host then says about the nun: "My cousin is on leave from her convent; she hasn't been well."
Julian responds to the question about war: "I don't believe war is inevitable. There are some small political problems, but they can be resolved with a little common sense..."
Stas declares that if there is war, he is prepared and willing to fight for Poland.
The next day, Nina and Julian go into the barn to visit the horses, which Nina loves, and while there, Julian hears a sound. He notices that there are two of the servants making love in the hay. He tries to get Nina to watch this activity with him, but she is upset at the earthy, primal lust and runs away. Julian pursues her and attempts to force her to make love with him in a horse stall, but a groom comes in and Nina is relieved to get away.
That night, Julian makes love to Nina in a brutal and animalistic way and it is clear that she not only does not enjoy it, but that she is deeply disturbed by it.
The following day, when all the guests are out riding, Nina is thrown from her horse. She is brought back to the house as if dead. Klementyna appears at the door of the bedroom to pray and tells Julian to "beseech god". He lifts her up from her knees and guides her from the room, closes the door and begins to sob at the thought of the loss of his bride. As he is crying, Nina sits up in the bed and says that she is fine. They go downstairs to find that the priest had been called to administer the last rites.
That night, the following exchange takes place between Julian and Nina:
"Do you remember anything about the fall?"
Nina: "Yes... and even somewhat... somehow... what would happen afterwards. I think I'm just imagining it... Did you think I was dead?" It is clear from the unusual way the scene is shot, with the actors shown in a mirror, illuminated only by candlelight and moonlight, that something very mysterious is attached to this remark of Nina's - that she can see the future.
The doctor orders Nina to remain at rest for at least a week and she suggests that Julian proceed on his journey without her.
The next day, more about Nina's new condition is revealed in a scene between her and Stas, once again, in the horse stall:
Nina: "Ive never been afraid of horses before...
Stas: "And now?"
Nina: "I'm starting to notice something elemental about them." (Smiles after uncomfortable pause) "I wish I could capture that quality in my pictures."
Nina gets Stas to accompany her home in Warsaw accompanied by Stas who has come to take Julian up on a job offer.
The Polish police come to the factory to inspect shipments of machine parts and Julian is curious about this, but considers it to be just normal "customs" issues.
In the evening, Nina and Julian attend the ballet. Afterward, another conversation that reveals that Nina is struggling with some sort of growing internal issues takes place:
Julian: "You so like ballet?"
Nina: "Yes I do. You obviously don't."
Julian: "The girls are not unattractive!"
Nina: "That's not what I meant.
Julian: "I know. I'm sorry. It's just that I don't have very much in common with tutus and pliés; it's all a bit artificial."
Nina: "Well, it's not meant to be real." (Long pause as Nina obviously is struggling with something inside.) "What you call reality is only an illusion. There must be something beyond that; something higher; something more perfect."
Julian: "Nina! That's all false! THIS is reality: me and you and our lives and trying to live decently and do good things not bad things... this is real..." (He begins to kiss her and nuzzle her breasts.)
Nina: (Pushes him away). "You aren't even trying to understand what I'm saying."
Julian: "It's not true." (Referring to the idea of another reality other than the everyday world.)
This conflict is the crux of the message of the movie. What IS reality?
The next day Nina goes on a sightseeing and photography expedition into the Jewish quarter. There she photographs two young girls. She wants to photograph an old woman, but the woman turns her back and Nina is overwhelmed by compassion for her pride in spite of her poverty and gives the woman her fur coat to replace the thin shawl that is all the woman has to keep her warm.
Stas soon discovers that the Germans are using the shipments to Julian's factory to smuggle guns in to arm the minority German population against the Poles. Stas wants to inform the Polish police. but Julian doesn't want to create animosity against himself on the part of the Germans or to attract bad publicity. Julian still doesn't understand that this is a fact-based indication that Germany really does indeed have plans to invade Poland and he orders Stas to not inform the Police. He still believes that diplomacy will solve all international issues. That night, Julian and his chauffeur take the guns out to a lake and dispose of them late at night.
Meanwhile, Nina is in her darkroom developing her photos of the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. Each time she tries to make a print of the photo of the two Jewish girls, the photo morphs into an image of piled up skulls and bodies, death and destruction. Nina realizes that she is seeing the coming reality.
At this point, Julian and the chauffeur return from their gun disposing expedition to find Nina in the basement darkroom in a near hysterical state. Julian leaves the chauffeur to clean up while he goes to comfort Nina. The chauffeur is last seen examining Nina's photo negatives hanging up to dry, including one of Stas.
Nina tries to explain to her pragmatic and materialistic husband what is wrong:
Nina: "I feel that something terrible's going to happen."
Julian: "To us?"
Nina: "To everyone."
Julian: "I've told you we can always go away from here."
Nina: "We can't. If people are suffering here, how can we run away?"
Nina then tells Julian that she has just heard that the nun they met at the diplomat's house where she had her accident has experienced a miracle: stigmata. She wants to go visit her. When she does, the nun tells her that the Bishop's envoy pronounced her stigmata to be hysteria, not a miracle, since the bleeding wound were not anatomically accurate.
Stas visits Julian as he and Nina are preparing to go out and tells him (with the chauffeur as a witness) that he feels that is is important to report the fact that the Germans are smuggling guns in to arm the Germans living in Poland. He is so insistent that Julian gets rough with him, shoving him down into a chair and shouting at him. Julian tells Stas that reporting the illegal arms shipments will only make the political situation worse since a treaty has recently been signed between Poland and Germany. Such a revelation at this point, about what Germany is really doing, would only hurt the peace process. It is clear that Julian's reality is quite distorted and based on wishful thinking. When Stas says he will report it anyway, Julian lets him know that he will not help by corroborating the story.
Nina also witnesses this scene and Julian brushes her questions aside with a shouted "I'll explain it later."
They go to the party where Julian is accosted by a German agent who lets him know that what he has done with the guns is not "patriotic" to Germany and that if he does not cooperate, he will be sorry. Julian is outraged at this attempt at coercion and he and Nina leave at once. He drops Nina off at the house and goes directly to his factory which has been set on fire. But, due to his quick action, there is little damage.
Meanwhile, Stas is assassinated by German agents.
Julian figures out that the only person who could have told the German agents about what he did with the illegal guns was his chauffeur. He returns home and demands an explanation. The man raises his hand in the Nazi salute and says "Heil Hitler." Julian begins to beat him. Nina hears the noise and walks in on this scene. Julian stops short of killing the man and orders him to pick up his wages and leave immediately. Nina points out that the man is bleeding and Julian shouts at her that he can get help at a pharmacy.
When Julian comes up to bed, Nina confronts him:
Nina: "Why did you beat him?"
Julian: (Shouting) "You don't know what he's been doing!"
Nina: "Beating people doesn't change anything.... Talk to me!
Julian: "What's the point in talking to you? You're always dreaming. You don't know anything about reality. Not THIS reality!"
Nina: "I do know about reality, but I don't want to be a part of it."
Julian: "You ARE a part of it, whether you like it or not! If you spent less time worrying about salvation you'd learn to cope with living!"
He then brutally rapes her anally. (The movie more or less presents this as his preferred sexual activity.)
The next morning, a maid knocks on the bedroom door. You see Nina leap out of the bed naked to dash to the bathroom. This strikes one as strange because it seems odd for her to not want to be seen in her own bed, where she has every right to be, by her own servant. Only later does the odd manner of her leaving the bed make sense.
The maid has come to inform Julian that the murder of Stas has been discovered. Julian goes to identify the body and learns that it is said to be a suicide and that a note and pornographic photos of Stas were found. Julian suggests that the photos were altered.
Julian is summoned home where he finds the maids crying and no one can tell him exactly what is wrong. Nina has, apparently, locked herself in the bathroom since early that morning and no one can get her to come out. Julian breaks the door and enters to find that Nina has gone completely psychotic.
It is at this point that Soutendijk's acting abilities shine. Her portrayal of her character through the various primitive psychiatric examinations of the time is stunning. Too bad she wasn't asked to play the madwoman-wife in Jane Eyre. I've never seen that part played with any conviction which is a big flaw in every version of it I've seen. Soutendijk apparently had ambitions to become an Olympic gymnast, and her gymnastic skills are used maximally in her scenes of madness.
But, back to Wherever You Are. The doctor, "Professor Steinberg," tells Julian that something in Nina's "soul" or "psyche" has "come unstuck."
It can be conjectured that Nina's head injury when she was thrown from the horse gave her some sort of "psychic ability," as has been reported in the cases of other psychics who acquire such talents after an accident, blow to the head, electric shock, etc. Her husband's unrealistic view of reality coupled with his insistence that the material reality is all that exists. opposes her own seeing of what is really going on beneath the surface as well as her spiritually realistic vision of the future. This destabilizes her and, without emotional support, she becomes completely unbalanced. She is sent to an asylum, with a brief recovery followed by a dramatic relapse into madness. Julian is obviously tortured by seeing his wife's suffering, but decides finally to leave her in an asylum in Poland while he returns to Uruguay. Right to the end, he does not believe that war will come. But it does, and Nina is murdered by the Nazis along with all the other patients at the clinic where Julian has consigned her to her death.
When the war is over, he returns to try to find out what happened to her, and weeps in despair. You don't know if he ever really understands anything at all.
It is very difficult to like the character that Sands plays because he has so few redeeming qualities. He's opinionated, materialistic, shallow, hypocritical and morally weak; all the while he believes that he is strong and knowledgeable, good and grounded in the REAL reality.
Nina's ability to see the REAL coming reality wrecks itself upon Julian's vehement belief that Germany will not go to war.
When the crunch came, he chose to leave his suffering wife behind to the Nazis rather than taking care of the woman he promised to love and cherish and care for "in sickness and in health."
The film is shot in a very "natural" style with warm autumn colors that hint at the occupation and persecution to come.
I have heard that the movie is based on a true story but am unable to find verification for that. In any event, I highly recommend this film because it has many thought-provoking qualities about how we view what is real, how we can be so "grounded" that we lose touch with reality, and how inspiration can guide us if only we will listen to it.
