Word: krystyna
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INTERROGATION. A Polish woman (Krystyna Janda) is arrested and tortured by the state, then bears her inquisitor's child -- a poignant metaphor for a generation of Poles sired in fear. Ryszard Bugajski's political horror movie, banned for eight years, plays like a suicide note smuggled out of the Gulag...
...tribute to glasnost. The jury, headed by director Bernardo Bertolucci, did bestow subsidiary awards to films whose politics complemented their aesthetics. Taxi Blues, a Soviet-French coproduction about the convulsive friendship of a Moscow cabdriver and a Jewish jazz saxophonist, won the director's prize for Pavel Lounguine. Krystyna Janda was named best actress for her role as a woman undergoing state torture in Ryszard Bugajski's The Interrogation, a harrowing babes-in-bondage film that the Poles had suppressed since 1982. The jury should also have honored Karel Kachyna's The Ear, made in 1970 and just now released...
However, Anna gives this old premise some unusual new twists. Notably, Writer Agnieszka Holland and Director Yurek Bogayevicz decide that the aging star's decline is more interesting than either her protege's success or potential bitchiness between the two of them Young Krystyna (Paulina Porizkova) worships Anna (Sally Kirkland) even after she has eclipsed Anna, who in turn manifests no jealousy or ill will toward Krystyna, at least not until near the end of the film. Yet Anna's decay is inexorable, pathetic and real, and is correctly the film's focus...
America does love the beautiful Krystyna, too much to leave her alone. Even when she first arrives, a thin, gawky teen with bad teeth, who speaks no English, almost immediately a hot-shot director "discovers" her; he can't take his eyes off her. Anna takes in this poor Czech waif, who has sought her out after growing up admiring her on the screen, and within a year, Krystyna has learned English, had her teeth fixed (for free, by an amorous dentist), and landed the lead in a Hollywood movie. She remains pure and ingenuous, living a charmed life...
...fact, Krystyna's story bears uncanny resemblance to that of Porizkova. Like her character, Porizkova fled the repression of Eastern Europe for America, where she found sudden fame because she is gorgeous. Just as her looks make the question of whether Krystyna has any real acting talent irrelevant to her success, so Porizkova's looks make the question of her own talent moot. It is not that model Porizkova demonstrates in her debut role that she cannot act, but rather, in this movie, Porizkova, like Krystyna, simply doesn't have...