BILDER FINDEN, by Ben Geissler.
I saw this incredible film under its original title, "Bilder Finden" which means FINDING Pictures, at the first Warsaw Festival of Jewish film in the spring of 2004 and reviewed it at the time, as follows;
Benjamin Geissler's 'Finding Pictures' is a multi-layered inquest into the lost murals of Bruno Schulz, legendary Polish-Jewish writer and artist who was murdered by the Germans in his home town of Drohobycz in 1942. This is the kind of film which requires multiple viewings to sort out the incredible mass of puzzling information presented in its all too short 106 minutes. Geissler traveled far and wide, Paris, Israel, Vienna, Germany, Drohowycz and Lwow, now in the Ukraine—to interview everyone he could find who had a connection with this strange masochistic Polish genius of word and image who has been styled, among other things, a 'Polish Kafka'. The lost pictures in question were painted by Schulz during the last year of his life on the walls of the villa of Felix Landau, the murderous Gestapo chief of Drohobycz who had a taste for art and literally enslaved Schulz, forcing him to decorate his young son's bedroom walls in exchange for a slightly longer lease on life.
Before he could be deported Schulz was shot dead on the street by a rival Nazi officer in the occupied city. When the house changed hands several times after the war and the walls were repainted, the Schulz murals disappeared but were known to exist. The film unfolds like a Galician Citizen Kane inquest and ends upon a shocking note when representatives of Yad Vashem arrive in town to literally steal these treasures straight from the walls—claiming that their rightful place is in Israel because 'Schulz was a Holocaust victim killed for being a Jew'. Thus this mural, rediscovered at great pains by concerned non-Jewish Germans, was treated by the Israeli Holocaust Mafia as an escaped Nazi war criminal rather than the Polish-Ukrainian art treasure which it actually is. Since it is something of a taboo in certain journalistic circles ever to say anything critical about the Yad Vashem Holocaust Center in Israel, the film raised a 'holy hell' of controversy when it was first shown two years ago in New York. (In 2002) -- Geissler's film is a thought provoker to say the very least, not to mention an invaluable celluloid document on Bruno Schulz himself.
Since the original release Geissler has done further research on Schulz and created a traveling installation as a separate work of art designed to make a larger public aware of the art work and life of a little known Polish genius, both as pictorial artist and highly innovative prose writer. Schulz completed four novels before his untimely death which are highly regarded as modern classics of Polish literature in rarified literary circles. Two, "Cinnamon Stores" and "Street of Crocodiles", have been translated into English and other languages. Another Schulz novel, "Sanatorium under the Hour Glass" was made into a magnificent Polish film by director Wojciech Has circa 1980. Benjamin Geissler's ongoing dedication to the rediscovery and promotion of the name of an obscure nearly forgotten Polish genius could itself be the subject of a fascinating documentary.
I saw this incredible film under its original title, "Bilder Finden" which means FINDING Pictures, at the first Warsaw Festival of Jewish film in the spring of 2004 and reviewed it at the time, as follows;
Benjamin Geissler's 'Finding Pictures' is a multi-layered inquest into the lost murals of Bruno Schulz, legendary Polish-Jewish writer and artist who was murdered by the Germans in his home town of Drohobycz in 1942. This is the kind of film which requires multiple viewings to sort out the incredible mass of puzzling information presented in its all too short 106 minutes. Geissler traveled far and wide, Paris, Israel, Vienna, Germany, Drohowycz and Lwow, now in the Ukraine—to interview everyone he could find who had a connection with this strange masochistic Polish genius of word and image who has been styled, among other things, a 'Polish Kafka'. The lost pictures in question were painted by Schulz during the last year of his life on the walls of the villa of Felix Landau, the murderous Gestapo chief of Drohobycz who had a taste for art and literally enslaved Schulz, forcing him to decorate his young son's bedroom walls in exchange for a slightly longer lease on life.
Before he could be deported Schulz was shot dead on the street by a rival Nazi officer in the occupied city. When the house changed hands several times after the war and the walls were repainted, the Schulz murals disappeared but were known to exist. The film unfolds like a Galician Citizen Kane inquest and ends upon a shocking note when representatives of Yad Vashem arrive in town to literally steal these treasures straight from the walls—claiming that their rightful place is in Israel because 'Schulz was a Holocaust victim killed for being a Jew'. Thus this mural, rediscovered at great pains by concerned non-Jewish Germans, was treated by the Israeli Holocaust Mafia as an escaped Nazi war criminal rather than the Polish-Ukrainian art treasure which it actually is. Since it is something of a taboo in certain journalistic circles ever to say anything critical about the Yad Vashem Holocaust Center in Israel, the film raised a 'holy hell' of controversy when it was first shown two years ago in New York. (In 2002) -- Geissler's film is a thought provoker to say the very least, not to mention an invaluable celluloid document on Bruno Schulz himself.
Since the original release Geissler has done further research on Schulz and created a traveling installation as a separate work of art designed to make a larger public aware of the art work and life of a little known Polish genius, both as pictorial artist and highly innovative prose writer. Schulz completed four novels before his untimely death which are highly regarded as modern classics of Polish literature in rarified literary circles. Two, "Cinnamon Stores" and "Street of Crocodiles", have been translated into English and other languages. Another Schulz novel, "Sanatorium under the Hour Glass" was made into a magnificent Polish film by director Wojciech Has circa 1980. Benjamin Geissler's ongoing dedication to the rediscovery and promotion of the name of an obscure nearly forgotten Polish genius could itself be the subject of a fascinating documentary.