Demon. Marcin Wrona, 2015.
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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (O-bi, o-ba. Koniec cywilizacji). Piotr Szulkin, 1985.
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Edition screened: Radiance Blu-ray, released 2024. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 84 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Interrogation (Przesluchanie). Ryszard Bugajski, 1982.
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Edition screened: Second Run DVD #007, released 2005. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 111 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Andrzej Żuławski: Three Films. 1971-1988.
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Edition screened: Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray box set, released 2023. Polish language with English subtitles. Cumulative runtime of three feature films approximately 398 minutes.
Summary: All feature titles in the set include scenes of cruelty to animals. Click individual titles for details.
In addition to documentaries and commentaries by top-shelf cineasts such as Daniel Bird and Michael Brooke, the Eureka! set includes the feature films:
The Third Part of the Night (1971)
The Devil (1972)
On the Silver Globe (1988)
The Devil (Diabel). Andrzej Żuławski, 1972.
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Edition screened: Included in Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray box set Andrzej Żuławski: Three Films, released 2023. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 125 minutes.
Summary: Mutilation of a horse, and inappropriate handling of a dead dog.
Details:
1) 1:51:10-1:51:19. While riding horseback, the protagonist slits the horse’s neck and the horse proceeds to fall down along with the riders. The horse then runs off with blood down its body. The appearance is very real.
2) 2:03:07-2:03:35. After killing someone, the camera reveals the dead body of a dog, which the murderer then carries for a bit before laying the dog back down on the ground.
How To Be Loved (Jak byc kochana). Wojciech Has, 1963.
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Edition screened: Yellow Veil Blu-ray, released 2023. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 98 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
On the Silver Globe (Na srebrnym globie). Andrzej Żuławski, 1988.
😿 😿
Edition screened: Included in Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray box set Andrzej Żuławski: Three Films, released 2023. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 166 minutes.
Summary: Hunting idiocy (normalcy).
Details:
1) 25:38-25:48. One of the travelers spears a fish in the sea, brings it onboard the boat and removes it from the spear, then chucks it outside of the frame.
2) 29:09-29:14. Arrows are shot into trees and birds squawk and fly away/fall to the ground. Because it happens so quickly I’m uncertain if any were hit, but it appears that at least one may have been.
The Third Part of the Night (Trzecia czesc nocy). Andrzej Żuławski, 1971.
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Edition screened: Included in Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray box set Andrzej Żuławski: Three Films, released 2023. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 107 minutes.
Summary: Perverted engagements with lice.
Details:
1) Lice are plucked from a Petri dish and clamped into the teeth of a metallic object to hold them in place. Shortly afterwards they’re fed blood. (1:13:54-1:14:04)
2) Protagonist appears to be dissecting lice, 1:24:30-1:24:54.
Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach (Lokis: Rekopis Profesora Wittembacha). Janusz Majewski, 1970.
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Edition screened: Included with Wilczyca (Disc 8) in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 100 minutes.
Summary: Poor treatment of animals throughout.
Details:
1) Street performers exhibiting a muzzled dancing bear, 7:52 - 8:47.
2) A white hen is used as bait to catch a hawk. We see the chicken tethered on short line at 32:48 as men sit nearby playing cards. A hawk dives and attacks the chicken at 33:32. We see the strike and feathers flying. The Count lunges for and captures the hawk at 33:36. The chicken is very angry and pecking but appears to be ok. The Count says to take the hawk to “the usual place.”
3) Through 35:29 we see examples of the Count’s taxidermy and understand the hawk’s fate.
4) Discussion of murdering a horse, 53:52 - 54:44.
5) Animals killed during a hunt are displayed beside the railroad tracks; foxes, rabbits, and a prominent bear, 1:37:23 - 1:37:52.
Note that while there is a general disregard for animals in the film, there are no actual scenes of harm or killing. That said, Lokis is an excellent film, suggesting the best of Visconcti or Pasolini.
Wilczyca (The Wolf). Marek Piestrak, 1983.
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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. Polish with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.
Summary: Graphic death of a dog.
Details:
1) The opening 20 seconds of the film show a raven pecking at meat on the head of a dead horse; not really the meat of the horse, more like some meat placed on the head of a dead horse.
2) Kacper finds and carries away his bloody dog that has been attacked by a wolf, 46:59 - 47:35. The dog appears to be genuinely wounded and dying, twitching and with tongue distended.
3) Kacper pursues and shoots at the wolf. We hear the wolf whimper after a gunshot at 1:1:49, then follow a trail of blood to see a bloody paw (and nothing more) at 1:20:18.
The Wilczyca BD in the Severin box set also includes Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach (1970, Janusz Majewski).
The Fat and the Lean (Le gros et le maigre). Roman Polanski, 1961.
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Edition screened: Included on Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. Scored and with an effects track; no dialogue. Runtime approximately 15 minutes.
Summary: Cheap humor with a dead goose and mindless beating of agrarian animals.
Details:
1) A goose has been shot and falls from the sky at 2:58. Polanski puts the goose in the oven and indulges in some ‘comedy’ with the bird’s head caught in the oven door, 3:09, and again at 3:34.
2) A friendly white goat is hit on the back of the head for no reason while she is being milked, 7:14, and again at 11:48.
Knife in the Water (Nóz w wodzie). Roman Polanski, 1962.
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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #215, released 2003. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.
The Criterion release also includes eight early short films by Polanski, mostly free of violence to animals with the exception of When Angels Fall and a shockingly criminal sequence in Two Men and a Wardrobe.
The Lamp (Lampa). Roman Polanski, 1959.
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Edition screened: Included with Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. Scored and with an effects track; no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 7 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Mammals (Ssaki). Roman Polanski, 1962.
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Edition screened: Included with Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. Scored; no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 10 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Murder (Morderstwo). Roman Polanski, 1957.
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Edition screened: Included with Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. No audio track. Runtime approximately 2 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.
Teeth Smile (Usmiech zebeczny). Roman Polanski, 1957.
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Edition screened: Included with Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. No audio track. Runtime approximately 2 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.
Two Men and a Wardrobe (Dwaj ludzie z szafa). Roman Polanski, 1958.
😿😿😿
Edition screened: Included on Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. Scored and with an effects track; no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 14 minutes.
Summary: Murder and desecration of a kitten.
Details: The offensive scene is cued at 7:33 by a shot of a black kitten eating. Immediately following, a group of young men throw apples at the kitten, and we see the kitten hit with a large apple at 7:41. One throws a substantial rock at 7:46, we see the other young men laugh at the apparent impact, and then see the kitten lying on its side dying alone and in pain 7:49-7:51. The men then torment people with the dead kitten by shoving its body in people’s faces, concluding with throwing the poor kitten at one of the wardrobe men and laughing, 8:53.
This scene is so unacceptable that it will forever change my perception of Polanski. The point, or at least one main point, of Two Men and a Wardrobe is that the two titular men are stand-ins for immigrants or people who otherwise are sociologically different and treated badly. They carry around a cumbersome wardrobe everywhere they go, marking them as different or strange as they interact with a broad cross-section of Polish society. The men who kill and defile the kitten presumably are the young scum of society who also regard the Two Men with violence and humiliating disrespect.
And So What? . . .
There are many ways to show that a group of people are morally corrupt trash. Torturing an animal is and always has been the thoughtless and easy way to depict this faction in film. Polanski made the film while he was still quite young, but I see no reason to overlook his foul offense, and I’m sticking with complete condemnation. This monstrous directorial decision probably reflects his true personal interior before learning to artificially curb his impulses for The Big Time. I am supposed to feel outrage that Polanski allegedly had sex with an underage girl. I shall forever be too busy hating him over the kitten.
When Angels Fall (Gdy spadaja anioly). Roman Polanski, 1959.
😿 😿
Edition screened: Included on Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. One second of Polish language subtitled in English, but otherwise lacking a dialogue track. Runtime approximately 21 minutes.
Summary: Typical rural violence.
Details: A typical country lad (ugly little brat) whips a toad with a long stick; I think a “switch” is the folky noun; 8:41-8:46.
Break Up the Dance (Rozbijemy zabawe). Roman Polanski, 1957.
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Edition screened: Included with Criterion DVD #215 Knife in the Water, released 2003. Scored, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 8 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
