Supplement “Supplement” is the second part of the conditional dilogy of K. Zanussi, started by the film “Life as a deadly sexually transmitted disease”, from different points of view, considering the history of friendship between a dying doctor and a young couple looking for their place in life. The Supplement focuses our attention on the relationship within the young couple, using some scenes from Life as logical connections, but can also be seen as a commentary on other Zanussi tapes, primarily Illumination and Constant.
Unlike these works, in which author’s sympathy envelops the history of the existential search for characters opposed to the impersonal bustle of socialist publicity, Supplement explores the spiritual crisis as a variant of human resistance to the divine will, a proud attempt to organize one’s life against divine plans. Assimilating the lessons of the subtle psychological studies of Bergman and Keslevsky, Zanussi discovers his own deep understanding of people, manifested even in the depiction of the slightest everyday nuances (for example, in the comically dark scene of failed seduction).
The node in the drama of the film is the opposition of a humble dying atheist to a willful young Catholic who constantly creates problems for his loved ones. If “Life...”, focused on the history of the doctor, is sustained in the sad intonation of the approaching end, then the image of the torment of the young hero of “Addition” is painted in distinct comic tones, although not without sympathy for him. Literally everyone around him is trying to help Philip, but he is so fixated on himself, so painfully focused on his desires, that he is unable to hear anyone.
Zanussi sees from a spiritual point of view the traps of such a false search for God, up to the charming desire for revelation, which leads the hero to drugs. The circle of bohemian youth is masterfully shown: the director achieves from the actors to play with cunning in the eyes, which can frighten the viewer - the characters become so disgusting. The hero does not find peace either among the vice that abhors him, neither in the monastery nor among his relatives - everywhere he is hindered by pride, disobedience to Divine thought for himself. Only by falling to the bottom, he wakes up and humbles himself.
However, in the last ten minutes, the director seems to erase the entire conceptual and artistic power of his picture with morally ambiguous episodes in which the characters who have found each other, instead of preserving their newly established relationship, suddenly indulge in fornication. Why do we need this scene? Apparently, to demonstrate the “progressiveness” of the views of the Catholic director, shy to promote abstinence before marriage in the early XXI century. The dying doctor tempts them to this, which is also incomprehensible: the noble act of giving an apartment is distorted by a sinful hint. Good movement mixes with evil. Zanussi wanted to show the reconciliation of man with God through selfless work for the sake of others, but why did he give him the form of temptation?
All this remains unanswered, devaluing the Christian orientation of the whole dilogy, however, “Supplement” like “Life...” certainly deserves the attention of the audience with its observational and interested view of existential problems, convincing disclosure of questions of faith and disbelief, deep knowledge of human nature, directorial ingenuity in creating a psychologically tense and dynamic narrative, which gives out in Zanussi not only a connoisseur of Bergman’s work, but also his talented student.