Antoni Krauze’s film, hailed as the Polish premiere of the year, recounts without exaggeration the events in Gdynia in 1970. Before Christmas, the government raises food prices. The workers rebel and want to begin a strike. The Party suppresses the unrest at its source, ordering the army to fire on unarmed people. Shots ring out.
The screenplay was written by two witnesses to the events of December ’70. Both were teenagers in Gdańsk at the time. They skipped classes. Michał Pruski narrowly escaped death because he found himself on a street under fire. Mirek Piepka watched the drama unfolding in the city. Years later, they succeeded in telling a vivid story without intrusive accusations or unnecessary pathos. “Black Thursday” allows viewers to form their own judgment and experience the events personally. Describing 17 December 1970—the massacre of workers in Gdynia—with meticulous documentary care, it does not impose a single supposedly correct interpretation.
Such a murder of people, committed solely to save an ideology and preserve the Party’s power, must create avengers: people who will never allow the executioners to be forgiven. But to hate for forty years, one must turn the world into black and white and cement that division. When I went to see the film, I feared that this above all would be the emotion it aroused. But the filmmakers left room for reflection, although many viewers will probably experience extreme emotions: anger, hatred, and a sense of grievance.
The film includes supporting characters who drive a wedge between the bloodied white of the good and the tanks of the evil. There are three of them. Jan Mariański (Grzegorz Gzyl), chairman of the Municipal National Council, who has the courage to speak with the workers from the Paris Commune Shipyard in Gdynia. A soldier helping a shipyard worker’s wife reach the hospital where her wounded husband has been taken. And an official delivering notices of the burial of murdered workers during the night. For me, these characters explain why Poland did not draw a thick line. Why it did not consign everyone who had anything to do with the Party to oblivion.
“Black Thursday” depicts what the struggle was about, as expressed in the oft-repeated words: “We did not fight for a Poland like this.” Many people still seem to believe that an ideal, just world should have emerged after such a bloody sacrifice. And they will never accept any other reality. We interpret justice in different ways. To me, it is a world in which those three characters—Mariański, the soldier, and the official—can also find their place. For others, they have no place in it because of the blood of Janek Wiśniewski on their hands. Contemporary history asks us about forgiveness. I watched this film as a tribute to the fallen, thinking that I am grateful to everyone who gave me a free Poland.
The film “Black Thursday. Janek Wiśniewski Fell” will be shown at the “Forum” cinema until 9 March. Reservations: kino.boleslawiec.pl.
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)