Essential Polish Animation (1957-1987)

This two-disc Blu-ray release, intelligently curated by Radiance, would be a good place to start for those interested in learning more about Polish animation as an important form of fine art or political commentary. It’s an animation festival in a box, a mixed bag of short films that are considered important for one reason or another: some for their craft, some for their technical innovation, and some for their socio-political context. Others are included because they’re quite good and may still appeal to a modern audience. Each has been restored to its best possible audio-visual clarity.

Some films stand out for visual inventiveness that remains graphically striking, while others have a narrative so subtle that it all but vanishes. There may be a perceptive philosophical message in some, while others are the epitome of pretension. One or two are genuinely clever. A few are funny, but inevitably there are some that veer towards the dark and depressing. To gain a deeper appreciation for these experimental, at times challenging, short animations, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of the context in which they were made.

Poland had a chaotic 20th-century and, as a nation, modern Poland is still relatively young. Hence, many of the films collected here are wrestling with cultural identity, the struggles of the recent past, and the turbulent socio-political climate. While other European nations were beginning to explore the potential of cinema as a new art form, Poland’s artistic growth was stunted by political instability and the struggle for independence from Russian rule. Even now, as a neighbour to war-torn Ukraine, there’s a constant threat of upheaval and an explicit understanding that borders are artificial lines drawn on a map.

The nation we now know as Poland didn’t exist when the early pioneers of animation were first experimenting with and innovating ambitious techniques. So, among the most relevant precursors would be the likes of maverick animator Władysław Starewicz, cited as the father of East European animation. His groundbreaking stop-frame films of animated insects—such as The Beautiful Leukanida (1912), which told its story using real beetle exoskeletons fitted with bespoke armatures—had few predecessors of note, if any. This was contemporary with Winsor McCay’s first animated shorts made in the US and at least two years before his famous Gertie, the Wonderfully Trained Dinosaurus (1914), which is often cited, erroneously, as the earliest animated film and certainly deserves immense respect for combining several techniques for the first time.

There would be two World Wars before Poland, as we know it, would be an independent country. This answers the question of why this collection only includes post-war Polish animation, because modern Poland was not established until after the death of Stalin.

With the outbreak of the World War I, many of the region’s militia hoped to use the ensuing chaos to break free and establish an independent nation. Instead, the conflicting factions within Poland were further fragmented as their territories were partitioned. Citizens found themselves conscripted into the armies of other warring countries, sometimes fighting against former compatriots. As with all war, it was messy and complicated on both public and political levels, but lands formally ruled by Russia were claimed by Germany and Austria. A New Republic of Poland was also declared, though contested until the Austro-Hungarian and German armies were disarming and the Allies recognised Polish independence at the end of WWI in 1918.

However, without the oppressive rule of the Russian and Austrian empires, war broke out immediately between Poland and Ukraine, both attempting to re-establish what each nation perceived as their historic territories. Those artificial lines were still being drawn and re-drawn. The early-1920s saw a series of border disputes and armed conflicts with neighbouring nations. The resulting economic decline towards depression, fuelled by a trade tariff ‘war’ with Germany, sparked civil unrest marked by many mass protests and strikes. This resulted in dissatisfaction among ‘the old guard’, and Józef Piłsudski, a retired general, led a military coup to overthrow the civilian government in 1926.

The arrest of thousands of political opponents followed over the next few years as Piłsudski established a totalitarian regime. After his death in 1935, Poland became further destabilised by infighting among different political factions, and rampant nationalism led to Poland annexing part of the neighbouring Czechoslovak state.

This nationalism also led to Poland refusing an alliance with the Soviet military to form a coordinated front against the increasing aggression of Nazi Germany. Instead, Stalin and Hitler drew up an agreement to divide Poland between them. Hitler was infamously untrustworthy and soon reneged on the pact, ordering the invasion of Poland and the extermination of the Polish people, which resulted in World War II.

The inevitable instability of this troubled nation following the war led to what was ostensibly a democratic nation being quickly dominated by a communist takeover of government that rapidly suppressed armed uprisings with the executions of political rivals, and by 1948, Poland was entrenched with the oppressive Soviet Stalinist regime. Only after Stalin’s death in 1953 did any inkling of independent rule creep into the Polish political arena, and it wasn’t until Władysław Gomułka began a concerted de-Stalinisation and liberalisation period that any independent Polish identity was allowed to freely assert itself, marked by the election of 1957. By then, experimental animation was well established as an art form. For many reasons, it was the East Europeans who had pushed its boundaries, with the giant of Czech animation, Jan Švankmajer, being one of the most noteworthy pioneers.

State censorship still restricted creative freedoms in Poland, but it was nowhere near as draconian as the Stalinist regime, and suddenly the arts could thrive. Not only did artists find greater expressive freedom, but they also had plenty of fuel for their work in a society wracked by the constant fluctuation of dominant political ideologies. Riots, strikes, student protests, police violence, and crackdowns were soon the norm, and it took bravery for a work of theatre or cinema to have any overt political stance. Theatres could be closed, creatives risked arrest if deemed to be activists, and creative output was subject to strict censorship and bans. However, animation was a medium that rarely attracted the attention of the censors, perhaps because it had the reputation of being for children.

Also, there was no need to attract attention with large crews or substantial funding. One person with basic material, skill, and a camera could produce a film, and if sufficiently veiled, political themes could be explored through symbolism and metaphor. It’s no coincidence that the ‘golden age’ of Polish animation also began around 1957, when the earliest of the short films included in this Blu-ray release were produced. Largely, the animation industry was unshackled by the control exerted by the state over cinema and theatre and, as a result, found markets abroad. Poland soon became a respected and prolific producer of animation, with well over 100 animated films being made in a good year.

Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica’s Banner of Youth (1957) has the same feel as works made by Soviet pioneers in the mid-1920s when Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein were pretty much inventing the montage techniques that would form the foundation of cinematic language, along with regular collaborator, Alexander Rodchenko, a Constructivist who revolutionised the art of graphic design, with particular relevance to poster design. Both Borowczyk and Lenica were also graphic designers specialising in posters, so their aesthetic borrows very much from collage and the graphic image. This was a short, punchy piece intended for insertion into a newsreel. The intention was to evoke the pneuma of the day with found images frantically colliding with stock footage of fashion, glitzy dinners, jazz clubs. As such, it now has historical documentary value and remains visually stimulating.

Borowczyk and Lenica’s Love Requited (1958) is something totally different and uses the naïve paintings of Jana Płaskocińskiego to create a simple narrative. The so-called animation here is basic rostrum photography tracking across the canvases. Its appeal, like several of the shorts in the collection, rests upon the aesthetic tastes of each viewer.

Another case in point would be Jan Lenica’s solo effort New Janko the Musician (1960), which places vintage line illustrations in the same frames as colourful and simplistic figures that appear to have been drawn by a young child. However, they lack that exuberance often found in genuine children’s art and, as a result, feel a tad condescending towards the viewer. If it’s intended as visual humour, then, for me, it landed off-target.

For Labyrinth (1962), Jan Lenica leans heavily on the collage work of Max Ernst, as showcased in the Surrealist’s graphic novel of 1934, A Week of Kindness. This is the kind of inventive use of cut-out vintage illustrations that surely influenced the likes of Terry Gilliam, who began producing similar animations for the Monty Python comedy television series from 1969. The result is surrealistic storytelling laced with an edgy fusion of the humorous and the disturbing.

Lenica continued working in graphic design and was less prolific than Borowczyk who, by the mid-1970s, was taking advantage of the relaxing censorship at home and abroad. He transitioned to feature films and veered into, first, artful erotica by way of romantic period drama with Immoral Tales (1974) before turning his hand to Italian nunsploitation with Behind Convent Walls (1977), which is perhaps his best-known movie, and moving on to the more transgressive Women of Evil (1978) and its themes of women turning the tables on male dominance in three different historical periods, with a bit of bestiality thrown in.

The Changing of the Guard (1959) is one of the stand-out films presented here, and its originality and quality deservedly won Halina Bielinska and Włodzimierz Haupe first prize in the short film category at the 1959 Cannes International Film Festival. This is a variation of stop-frame 3D puppet animation, but instead of humanoid or animal figurines, its story is told using matchboxes. Their identity and emotions are ingeniously conveyed by the label on the front of each box. The animation set is simple and elegant, picking up strong influences from the early sculptural work of Italian surrealist Alberto Giacometti with reference to his small theatrical sculpture of 1932, The Palace at 4 a.m. Indeed, the subject and setting have an appropriate resonance.

The charming story tells of a romance between a soldier matchbox and a princess matchbox, though the tale has tragi-comic results as we learn just how destructive the heat of passion can be. The deployment of nostalgia through the witty subversion of fairytale tropes can also be read as political metaphor, a cautionary tale about longing for a romanticised past instead of building towards a realistic future. Also, about changing times and the values of each generation becoming more progressive. The film put Poland on the animation map and left a long legacy that can be tracked to the music video for the 2009 single “Warrior’s Dance” by The Prodigy, directed by Corin Hardy with animators Gary Carse and Daniel Waterman, which could almost be considered a post-punk remake!

While on the subject of awards and music videos, another notable inclusion in this compilation is Tango (1980) by Zbigniew Rybczyński, which was the first Polish film of any category or genre to win an Oscar, taking home the 1983 Academy Award for ‘Best Short Film’. It’s a visually fascinating piece that bears re-watching many times and was inspired by the entwined stories of people and places. It visualises the memory of an unremarkable room that has witnessed the mundane minutiae of the everyday lives of its occupants over several generations.

At the start, the room is vacant before a ball bounces in through the open window and the rhythm of a tango begins. A young boy climbs in, retrieves the ball, and leaves. Later in the narrative, a gloved thief will also use the same window. Could it be the same boy now grown, a comment on innocence and experience? Or the changing times, recalling when one could leave the door unlocked and not fear robbery? The loop of the ball and the boy repeats as past occupants appear and go about their simple, repetitive actions. A man changing a light bulb topples from the chair he stands on and limps out of the room. A naked woman enters and dresses. A family eat dinner. A plumber delivers a flushing toilet. A mother changes her baby’s nappy. An old woman lies down to rest.

It may not be traditional animation, being made up of many repeating loops of moving image, all overlaid and crowding each other out of view. However, this effect was achieved by a painstaking hands-on technique in which Zbigniew Rybczyński hand-drew and painted more than 16,000 mattes on animation cells and captured more than 100,000 exposures using an optical printer. Understandably, the visuals inspired many imitators since, as well as inspiring the graphic novel, Here, by Richard McGuire, which was teased in short form in 1989 before being completed in 2014 at around 300 pages.

Zbigniew Rybczyński went on to direct music videos for major international acts including John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, Rush, Simple Minds, Art of Noise, and Pet Shop Boys. He also pioneered computer animation programming, which I assume would have made the hands-on approach used in Tango obsolete.

For me, the three most enjoyable offerings come from Witold Giersz with A Little Western (1960) and The Red and the Black (1964), both being examples of his fun ‘finger-painting’ illustrative style along with clever visual linguistics that rupture the fourth wall. They’re the kind of thing one might imagine seeing as part of The Pink Panther Show (1969–1979), or as Saul Bass-style cinematic title sequences. And his animation created by working into wet oil paints, Horse (1967), is ingenious and still feels fresh; indeed, the paint’s still wet.

But it’s not all fun here. Although they’re all short, they remain a chore to get through in one sitting. Perhaps because of a pervasive naïve or overly dark aesthetic, which may well appeal to some tastes. Also, the rhythmic clanking of the soundscapes and stygian ink-black of some gets rather monotonous and tiresome. I feel like there were several in this vein, but in reality, it was probably only a few that reinforce the cliché of dark, dour, heavily symbolic animation from Eastern Europe.

Falling into that well-worn category are the two films from Ryszard Czekała. The Son (1970) poignantly tracks a generational rift as a farmer shares a meal with his son who seems to then leave for the city in the hope of a better life. This recalls times when agriculture suffered during the economic depression. Of course, we know things were no better in the slummy cities during that time. Roll Call (1970) is set within a Nazi concentration camp, so the dark tone is perfectly fitting. Also, the black and white illustration means we don’t know what colour the triangles stitched onto the tunics of the prisoners are, so they become an everyman of the persecuted. Although this explicitly references the oppression and mass murder of the Polish people by the Nazi regime, it could also be taken as a reference to any similar authoritarian oppressors and their potential for descending into such evil. The Stalinist regime committed a great many murderous atrocities, too.

Not many women were afforded the opportunity to become notable animators, and so it’s good that Zofia Oraczewska is included here with her visually striking cut-up animation The Banquet (1977), in which a cohort of evidently wealthy, yet grotesque, people attend a lavish feast but end up being devoured by the food laid before them. A clear critique of consumerist culture as the plucked chicken, the fish, even the greens, eat flesh and bone but reject goods of ostentation such as expensive watches and diamond rings. It’s a vicious satire using the aesthetic of glossy magazines that nonetheless elicits a cruel chuckle or two and has been shown to countless students of animation as inspiration. It’s a prime example of how mixed-media and cut-up collage can be so effective when brought to life with stop-frame animation.

The whole collection is a great showcase of different, relatively simple techniques that may even inspire viewers with a creative bent to have a go for themselves. After all, there are easily accessible animation apps at our fingertips nowadays. I’ve taught 2D and 3D stop-frame animation as part of Creative Arts and Media college courses, and this double-disc Blu-ray would have been a gift. I would certainly have shown these to students to inspire, perhaps using one per lesson for discussion, because whether one likes any of them or not becomes irrelevant—they’re at least interesting and surely thought-provoking.

POLAND | 1957-1987 | BLACK & WHITE • COLOUR | POLISH

Limited Edition Blu-ray Special Features:

• High-definition digital transfers of 27 classic animated films on two discs.
• Original uncompressed PCM mono audio.
• 15 NEW audio commentaries on select films by film historians Daniel Bird, Ela Bittencourt, Michael Brooke and Kambole Campbell (2025). All erudite and educational, offering interpretations and providing production context along with biographical information about those involved.
• Animated Poland—a NEW programme by film historian and Eastern European cinema expert Michael Brooke (2025, 59 mins.) This had the potential to be an excellent bonus but is marred by its rushed presentation. Have a notepad at the ready because the facts and contextual information comes thick and fast. As Michael Brooke says himself, one hour isn’t nearly enough time to provide a functional introduction to such a huge and rich subject, but the bona fide expert on East European cinema does a heroic job in trying. Those with a device that can slow down playback would benefit from selecting half-speed as he delivers his well-researched monologue with quick-fire precision and actually does cover everything anyone with a passing interest would need to know before viewing the examples showcased on these two discs. Many of the short films are available elsewhere, several are freely distributed online, so this rushed lecture is the unique selling point of the set. If it had been allowed room to breathe, say another 30 minutes or so, it alone would be worth the admission fee.
• Optional English subtitles.
• Reversible sleeve featuring NEW commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista.
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by animation expert Karol Szafraniec. Not available at time of review.
• Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.

Complete List of Films:

• Banner of Youth (Borowczyk, Lenica, 1957)
• Love Requited (Borowczyk, Lenica, 1958)
• The Changing of the Guard (Halina Bielinska, Wlodzimiez Haupe, 1959)
• New Janko the Musician (Jan Lenica, 1960)
• A Little Western (Witold Giersz, 1960)
• Playthings (Kazimierz Urbanski, 1962)
• Labyrinth (Jan Lenica, 1962)
• The Chair (Daniel Szczechura, 1963)
• The Red and the Black (Witold Giersz, 1964)
• Everything is a Number (Stefan Schabenbeck, 1967)
• Horse (Witold Giersz, 1967)
• Cages (Miroslaw Kijowicz, 1967)
• The Stairs (Stefan Schabenbeck, 1968)
• The Son (Ryszard Czekała, 1970)
• Journey (Daniel Szczechura (1970)
• Roll Call (Ryszard Czekała, 1970)
• Road (Miroslaw Kijowicz, 1971)
• The Banquet (Zofia Oraczewska)
• Barrier (Jerzy Kucia, 1977)
• A Hardcore Engaged Film. Non-camera (Julian Józef Antoniszczak, 1979)
• Reflections (Jerzy Kucia, 1979)
• Tango (Zbigniew Rybczyński, 1980)
• Solo in a Fallow Field (Jerzy Kalina, 1981)
• The Source (Jerzy Kucia, 1982)
• Chips (Jerzy Kucia, 1984)
• A Gentle Woman (Piotr Dumała, 1985)
• Parade (Jerzy Kucia, 1987) 

Selected Awards:

• The Changing of the Guard – Best Short Film, Cannes Film Festival
• Labyrinth—FIPRESCI Prize, Annecy Animated Film Festival
• The Chair—Grand Prize, Oberhausen Short Film Festival
• The Red and the Black—Best Animated Film, Oberhausen Short Film Festival
• Cages—Best Short Film, Oberhausen Short Film Festival
• Reflections—Special Jury Award – Annecy Animated Film Festival
• Tango—Best Animated Short Film, Academy Awards
• A Gentle Woman—Award of Merit, Ottawa Animation Festival
• Parade – Main Prize—Oberhausen Short Film Festival

Crew

directors: Walerian Borowczyk, Jan Lenica, Halina Bielinska, Wlodzimiez Haupe, Witold Giersz, Kazimierz Urbanski, Daniel Szczechura, Stefan Schabenbeck, Miroslaw Kijowicz, Ryszard Czekała, Zofia Oraczewska, Jerzy Kucia, Julian Józef Antoniszczak, Zbigniew Rybczyński, Jerzy Kalina & Piotr Dumała.