The movie is off time A Short Day at Work is a film by Krzysztof Kieslowski, completed by December 1981 and chronicling the Radom events, the most important episode in the series of protests that swept Poland in late June 1976. The picture is devoted mainly to the morning of the first day of the riots in the Polish city of Radom, which lasted from 25 to 30 June 1976. Hard in its realism, the image of the Radom events, clearly echoing the events of 1981, predetermined the fate of the tape: its official premiere took place only in June 1996 - the twentieth anniversary of the protests of 1976.
The hero of the picture, from the point of view of which the viewer follows the events in the city of Radom, is the first secretary of the voivodeship committee of the Dravatsky party (a fictional character, in fact this position was held by Janusz Prokopyak). This circumstance is similar to the “Short working day” with the early film of Keslevsky “Scar”, in which the crisis of the winter of 1970-71 and the events preceding it were also shown from the point of view of production managers and the apparatus of local authorities.
The film opens with a retrospective showing the rise up the career ladder of the protagonist. The first point is March 1968, the time of the anti-Semitic campaign and widespread student unrest in the PPR. Here the main character conducts an explanatory conversation with the workers of a certain enterprise concerning current events, communicates to them the policy of the Party on this issue. In the film, as in life, the party at this stage seeks active support from the working class and help "in restoring order and the educational process."
In this episode, the director seeks to demonstrate what he believes to be the social immaturity of the Polish working class. In the film, the workers, showing their so far characteristic conformity, albeit indifferently, applaud the words of the protagonist (although he has to insistently repeat the phrase if it involves subsequent applause). Dravasky openly and without hesitation says that he is going to give the assembled “correct answers to the questions” before they are involved in restoring order – the workers in turn obediently listen.
It should be noted, however, that Kieslowski is not quite fair in showing in his film the absolute conformity and conciliation of the Polish working class, which, at the behest of the authorities, takes part in pacifying student protests. In reality, the workers of the older generation in 1968 did help the Polish law enforcement agencies, but at the same time many young proletarians, on the contrary, supported the students and joined the protest.
After March 1968, the film follows 1975, when Drawacki is solemnly appointed as First Secretary of the Voivodeship Committee of the PORP. Then shows the fateful 1981, when Drawacki, speaking on Polish television, in absentia holds the answer to Solidarity and from his point of view tells about the events of June 1976 in the city of Radom. Drawacki’s story begins with a speech before the Polish Sejm by Prime Minister Petr Jarošević announcing a sharp rise in food prices – a speech broadcast on Polish television on June 24, 1976, which was the starting point of the protests that began in Radom the next day.
In the depiction of the events of June 25, 1976, the director’s desire to restore the entire chronology of events between six in the morning and half of the third day is clearly traced (the suppression of the protest, which began after 14:30, is left behind in the picture). The credibility of the film is probably due to Keslevsky’s extensive experience in documentary film. Although in the first place, Keslevsky is interested in the thoughts and inner experiences of the main character of the tape - the first secretary of the voivodeship committee, who, in a stressful situation, being under pressure from both the working class and the capital authorities, is desperately trying to develop the right behavioral tactics.
The protest of June 25 was based on a purely economic demand of the working class to return prices to their previous levels. However, the most important consequence of the June 1976 protests was the formation of new opposition organizations in Poland, which were no longer limited to economic tasks, but also worked to change the political paradigm in Poland. The most important organization of this kind is the Committee for the Protection of Workers (KOR) created by the Polish intelligentsia in September 1976.
Keszlöwski, recounting the events of just a few hours on June 25, 1976, seeks, however, in his film to show the most important transformation in Polish society that occurred in 1976 - the transition from only economic requirements to economic and socio-political requirements. However, to say that this transformation took place at a single moment in the morning of June 25 in the square in the center of Radom would be an unacceptable simplification. The director uses an interesting technique. In the film, a crowd gathered at the walls of the committee demands the cancellation of the price increase. But some shouts from the masses of the people can be interpreted as a demand for the political reconstruction of Poland. Moreover, one of the cries actually contains a call for the creation of independent trade unions in opposition to the “red bourgeoisie” – a request that is more relevant for 1980.
There are some interesting flash forwards in the film. The camera captures the individual faces of the demonstrators, after which their future is briefly shown: the drive of the detained workers through the “path of health” (execution in the form of a run of arrested people through two rows of policemen beating them with batons), the trials of participants in the Radom riots, and so on. An interesting fragment from the "future" in which a young student-glasses - apparently a member of the Committee for the Protection of Workers - offers financial and legal assistance to the family of an arrested worker. This help offered to a working family by a student sounds like the antithesis of the film’s opening, where workers are involved in suppressing protests by fellow students.
In his film, Kieslowski is not inclined to idealize the Polish proletarians. Showing the events in Radom, Keslevsky does not veil the facts of senseless vandalism and unjustified violence committed by the radical part of the workers. Keslevsky seems to repeat the popular idea that the real organized force is only the alliance of the intelligentsia and the proletariat – without the intelligentsia, the proletariat cannot use its energy productively.
By filming The Short Workday in mid-1981 and finishing its editing by December, Keslevsky could have considered Solidarity’s political victory something of a fait accompli – not knowing that martial law would soon be declared in the country. The unprecedented rampant freedom in 1981 (before the introduction of martial law) gave hope for the rental of seditious tape. In addition, Keslevsky saw how in the summer of 1981 Andrzej Wajda managed to achieve the seemingly impossible – to achieve the release of the film “Man of Iron”.
The irony of the fate of the film “Short working day” is that, banned immediately after editing in late 1981, it was not immediately able to reach the public after 1989. The image of the party secretary as a living and interesting person, and not a bloodthirsty communist monster, turned out to be wrong after the dismantling of the socialist system.
8 out of 10