A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1966) and the National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź (1974), Feliks Falk debuted as a filmmaker in the 70s. His name is linked to the term ‘cinema of moral anxiety’, created to diagnosing the Polish reality of that time. The imposition of martial law in 1981 brought an end to this trend. He is present at TIFF with his debut movie Wodzirej / Top Dog (1978), a long-lasting symbol of people’s mentality in socialist era. Besides being a filmmaker, he is a theatre director, writer of film scripts, stage plays, television plays, and radio dramas; also a painter and graphic artist.
Regarding your film, Wodzirej / Top Dog, the subject is presented in a very ironical way. Did you want to attack the political situation from the 70s?
It wasn’t meant as a political film. For me it is metaphoric. It doesn’t speak only about the Polish so-called socialist system, but it was ridiculous for viewers, what it is really going on, what is behind the story. Of course, me as well as my colleagues, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland, Andrzej Wajda, we started in this period with realistic films. Although my film is metaphoric, it is based on a realistic aesthetic.
And on the real society, as well.
Exactly. So it wasn’t my aim to criticise. I just wanted to say a story. But because it was based on my experience, on what I had seen, it was transferred to social, political context.
You were talking about your generation colleagues and I was wondering how come such a good generation emerged, back then?
You never know.
Was it chance or luck?
It was a new generation who saw the reality in front of their eyes, in a more critic way. It was probably some chance that we were together in the same time. There were more names than I mentioned.
Were you influenced by each other?
Not exactly. We were together in a unit, the leader was Andrzej Wajda, and there were also Agnieszka Holland, me, Krzysztof Kieślowski. We were very close. Some others were also in our unit and we had these same ideas about the system. Each of us thought differently, we made films more or less at the same time, but it wasn’t like we were influenced by each other. It was just that we were together.
I’m asking because for example Man of Marble / Człowiek z marmuru by Wajda is a mix of documentary and fiction and your film is similar aesthetically, with many close-ups, it’s like the camera doesn’t know where the character goes. This dynamic makes the movies feel very real.
Most of us had the idea to make authentic films and to show heroes which would be very real; it could be your friend or anybody else you meet on the street.
What is the main message of Top Dog and why should people see it at TIFF?
First of all, it is about the career of a person who has no morals, who wants to go up by killing people. It’s everywhere the same, in each system there are very ambitious people who can step over corpses on their road to gain success. And it is always connected to lacking of morals. In the 70s socialist system, this problem was very spread out, because lack of money, lack of status, lack of everything, which forced many people to cheat. There was also a system of changing goods, ‘I give you this and you give me this’. I give you a diploma, you give me a car. And this is not the only example. People tried to bribe their way up.
The film is screening on Friday, June 24, 19:30, at Cinema Arta.