Wojciech Staroń documents his girlfriend’s year in Usolye-Sibirskoye as a Polish teacher in poetic SIBERIAN LESSON
NEW FILMS PRESENTED BY LIVIA BLOOM: TWO LESSONS (Wojciech Staroń, 2013)
SIBERIAN LESSON (Wojciech Staroń, 1998) and THE ARGENTINIAN LESSON (Wojciech Staroń, 2011)
Maysles Institute
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
December 16-22, $10 suggested donation, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org
“I left all my troubles in Poland, all the duties that occupied my days,” Malgosia says at the beginning of 1998’s The Siberian Lesson. “I really wanted to leave them all behind. I wanted a break.” As it turns out, spending a year in Usolye-Sibirskoye does not end up being much of a break for Malgosia, who arrives in a town out of time, looking more like 1956 than 1996. Malgosia has traveled to Siberia to teach her native language to the descendants of Polish exiles who fled the country during tsarist rule, men, women, and children who know little of their homeland; she is joined by her boyfriend, recent Polish Film Academy graduate Wojciech Staroń, who is documenting it all with his 16mm camera. Malgosia, who narrates the film in a dry monotone, immediately discovers that life is extremely difficult for this tight-knit community; the teachers are on strike, and poverty is rampant, the food of survival the potato, which she is told everyone must grow for themselves in order to make it through the hard winter. She meets some rather unique characters during her stay, including Tatar gym owner Zinat, Father Ignacy, and a night watchman named Walery who has dedicated his life to translating the Bible from Polish into Russian. Meanwhile, students of all ages come to her classes, seeking something they can’t otherwise find in their daily existence. Malgosia is also searching for something in her own life, and she finds it in her growing love for Wojciech, who adds beautifully poetic shots of the vast Siberian landscape to accompany Agata Steczkowska’s nearly elegiac piano score.
Janek and Marcia learn some hard truths in sadly beautiful ARGENTINIAN LESSON
Ten years later, Malgosia and Wojciech are now married, and they move to the remote village of Azara in northern Argentina for two years with their children so Malgosia can teach Polish to the emigres living there. While the first film focused on Malgosia, Argentinian Lesson follows their eight-year-old son, Janek, as he befriends Marcia, a smart eleven-year-old girl who needs to work in order to help support her family; her mother stays at home, suffering from a mental illness, while her father lives far away, toiling in the rice fields for very little pay. It is heartbreaking watching Marcia’s struggle, particularly when she and Janek go on a trip to see her father, whose eyes fill with tears when he bids farewell to his daughter. “It’s not easy,” he tells Wojciech. “It’s not easy.” Argentinian Lesson is a different kind of coming-of-age documentary, one that shows there are no simple answers, especially when children have to grow up so fast. Wojciech once again features gorgeous shots of the local landscape, helping him earn the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Camera) at the 2011 Berlinale, among many other awards. The documentaries, each of which runs about an hour, can now be seen together as Two Lessons, which is making its worldwide theatrical premiere December 16-22 at the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem as part of the bimonthly “Documentary in Bloom: New Films Presented by Livia Bloom” series.