People and Fish

Poland1962documentary12'Pokaz specjalny (2018)

A reportage about the work of fishermen. Its penicular beauty stems from its simple construction and the feel of maritime adventure which one gets throughout most parts of the film. Slesicki and the Director of Photography, Bronislaw Baraniecki, took pictures of day-to-day prosaic events at a sea port, in which they captures the kind of beauty perceptible only to a acute observer. The story about one day in the life of fishermen from Wladyslawowo begins with sunlit images of a port canal. The mooring lines are dropped. The fish crates are carried off the boats. As the fishermen are busy unloading their cargo, the woman are hard at work at the fish processing plant. Their faces are shrouded in white headscarves. Silver heads of the Baltic herring lay scattered over the conveyer. The work is in full swing. The camera shows a panorama of a modern port. It looks at a gigantic storage room with its grinds and screeches. Announcements about an imminent storm are aired. Perched on a railing of a fishing boat, a couple of soaked little birds huddle in the cold. The water floods the deck along with Baraniecki’s camera lens. A man in a storm suit struggles with a net. As waves break against it, a Wla-104 cutter sails on about fifty yard away. The suspense grows. In the sun rises again, the sea will calm down and the cutters will appear at the port gates where we saw them at the start of the film.