After a very helpful and wholesome chat with my colleagues I have finally chosen the scene I am going to be working on. We were talking about the scenes from childhood movies, that left us unsettled and traumatised. I remembered the scene that used to make my blood run cold and still does, what I realised after watching it. The sound was contributing to that undoubtedly, therefore I thought that creating something that will revoke those old feeling using modern technology could be an interesting challenge.
I found the movie that was one of my favourites back in the day. The scene can be seen in the first YouTube link. it starts from 1h 7min and goes for 4mins and 37 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4_Q9Nqa7o8
‘Mr Blot’s Academy’, pt.2 English subtitles
“Akademia Pana Kleksa” is part 1 of the trilogy based on a Polish children’s book by Jan Brzechwa by the same title from 1946. The movie was directed by Krzysztof Gradowski and released in 1983. It was a difficult time for Poland, society was divided, threatened and censorship was widely used especially within the arts and culture. A young director with only few short movies in his portfolio directing the movie for younger audience, certainly wasn’t the most popular and acknowledged idea in cinema world back in those days. This colourful, imaginative, engaging and futuristic picture was shown to millions of people in Poland and abroad and turned out to be a massive success, which led to work on other 2 parts in the years to come.
The scene I have chosen was a cause of nightmares of many children and possibly some adults. Originally, the scene is soundtracked with a song by Poolish heavy metal band TSA, and the lyrics goes something along the lines:
“We walk together
Nobody can stop us
In front of the wolf pack
All resistance has disappeared
Hey wolves
Let my brother know no mercy
strong jaws and strong will
We will conquer the whole world
We walk as a herd
A shadow falls over our world
A big day awaits the wolfpack today”
Some people saw the scene as a reference to German soldiers of Wehrmacht marching through the country during the war. Some, as movie was released just after the end of 2-year long harsh restrictions known as Martial Law in Poland, were comparing the wolves to more recent villains – the Motorized Reserves of the Citizens’ Militia – paramilitary-police formations during the communist era.
Gradowski mentions in interview, that the book’s author intention was clear when he wrote about the wolves. He took this idea even further and wrote the scene modelling it on the propaganda films glorifying the Third Reich made by Leni Riefenstahl – a filmmaker working for Adolf Hitler.
https://film.wp.pl/nie-strzelac-jestesmy-z-polski-i-krecimy-pana-kleksa-6344473653106817a
