young families vacationing at a government-sponsored summer camp that he read about in the papers—an idyl- lic picture postcard for socialism. But what he exposes instead is how self-interest and conformism trample lofty ideals. Upon arrival at an actual campsite, Łoziński inserted two couples into the film who were in fact his unmarried friends. One of them was to cozy up to the camp’s establishment. The other was to act aloof. Between these two, an apparatchik and a reluctant con- formist, Łoziński created a replica of Poland post-1968, when Prague was invaded by Warsaw Pact troops, end- ing a period of relative openness and rejuvenation. But this basic scenario is only the beginning. Amid inane savoir-vivre games and fresh-air drills shot over a nine- day period, tensions rise when the camp management announces a competition to pick the ideal socialist fam- ily (the coveted prize was to be a washing machine, later replaced by a more trivial item). The establishment spies on the unsuspecting campers, and Łoziński and his ver- satile cameraman, Jacek Petrycki (who also worked for Krzysztof Kieślowski, among others), capture their tire- less, voyeuristic inveigling. Innocuous Peeping Tom epi- sodes soon give way to interrogations, in which children are asked to discuss their parents’ domestic troubles. Campers recklessly pass judgment on their comrades’ mental health. Competitiveness and schadenfreude win out, and one of Łoziński’s friends is attacked. Much of the method that Łoziński uses in How to Live
springs from his metaphor of a fish tank: If reality is like a calm tank, where forces hiding beneath are not detect- able on the surface, what happens if we shake things up? The participation of Łoziński’s friends is the shaking up— Łoziński sets up the minimum parameters, though no scenes or dialogue are actually scripted, no professional actors involved. The fish-tank analogy tells us much about Łoziński’s ethos, for he favors contextual ambiguity
and nuance over declarative simplicity. The fact that the other couples do not suspect a setup raises questions of how much, and to what end, a filmmaker may intervene in nonfiction film. But in dramatic terms, there is no deny- ing that Łoziński’s gamble pays off. When resentment boils over, the reactions of most of the campers are not just shocking—they are real in the purest sense. The Oscar-nominated short 89mm from Europe, which
Łoziński made in 1993, stands at a transitional midpoint in his career. True to the changing times—Poland rees- tablished its democracy in 1989, while the Soviet Union was in a transitional stage—the politics recede and the lens becomes more personal. Łoziński shot 89mm from Europe in Brześć, on the border between Poland and former USSR (today Belarus), where he witnessed an elaborate ritual of changing wheels on a Paris-Moscow passenger train. Since the width of the rails in Europe versus Russia varied by 89mm, the wheels had to be changed mid-journey. What better metaphor to show that differences between East and West, or cultures in general, can be subtle yet insurmountable? In the film, in which the handsomely dressed, amused travelers peer from up high at the exhausted, rugged workers, we experience first the physical proximity—the original excitement, or novelty, of two worlds colliding and a fleeting curiosity—followed by indifference. By showing the station before the train’s arrival, Łoziński identifies with the railroad workers, showing their lives as ruled by a rigid pattern, from monotony to back-breaking work. Partly a meditation on difference and partly a treatise on labor, Łoziński anchors the film’s metaphysics in keen observation. Moreover, he restricts dialogue, so promi- nent in his other films. Even his “fish tank” method is sub- tler: He has his young son get off the train and converse with the workers, thus nudging reality towards a more arresting take.
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