Sorrento albo inny Doboszów – prowincjonalni marzyciele znad rzeki, której nie ma
Sorrento, or, different Doboszów. Provincial dreamers on a river that does not exist

Author(s): Karolina Kostyra
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt at an analysis of the fi lm Nad rzeką, której nie ma (On ariver that does not exist), directed by Andrzej Barański in 1991, by setting it in a landscapeof fi lm tales about coming of age. The coming of age cinema usually uses its own imagery convention, whose main feature is permanent presence of nature: wild, lush, romantic or idylic. Lakes, high grass and forest allow a young person to get lost and, then, find the way back in accordance with a fairytale optics. Barański’s fi lm uses this attribute of the genre contrarily, by situating in the landscape of coming of age in a little town unstoppable nature on a par with images of the familiar buildings. Dominant in the iconography of the river which does not exist are dirt roads, weathered ruins and benches overgrown with grass. This kind of locations of the non-existent Doboszow invokes familiar points from a cultural map of all little towns, where young residents hang out lazily in the viccinity of a railway station, awaiting with hope for the mysterious visitors. Under these modest conditions, the heroes of Nad rzeką, której nie ma fantasize about getting away from the peripheries towards the unattainable exotic lands, at the same time becoming more and more inseparable from the land of their childhood. For Admiral, Ataman, Pasha and Chief, this space seems tedious and ambient, broad and narrow at the same time; finally, however, situating itself the nearest to the nostalgic „boyhood paradise“. The author of the article invokes the poetics and the main thought of Barański’s fi lm, asking a question if, with age, one grows out of the spell of little towns and conceptions of unstoppable nature. In the discussed fi lm, coming out of a childhood idyl, if it exists at all, is being realized in tranquillity coinciding with the tissue ofmelancholic provinces.

• Details
• Contents