Salto

Salto or Somersault it is a 1965 drama film written and directed by Tadeusz Konwicki. It is a poetic and psychological movie with the grotesque atmosphere. In Konwicki’s work we can find not only poetical elements but also comic, autobiographical and sociohistorical ones. According to polish film critic, Robert Birkholc, the oneiric world presented in the film is strongly rooted in Polish reality – this is a land of national myths, fears and delusions. Salto deconstructs war myths, it is very autotematic film because Konwicki drew inspiration from  his “Dream-book for our time”. The film has been described as Kafkaesque, where the atmosphere of magical realism like in the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Jorge Luis Borges could be found.

Regarding to the plot, we can see a sleepy town somewhere in Poland which is changed after arrival one stranger. This man presents itself as Kowalski or Malinowski – he has two biographies. He is everyman because these surnames are very popular in Poland. This town it depicts Poland in the micro-scale. The people in the movie demonstrate Polish national types of character, our archetypes. Salto is a deeply allegorical story, which has surrealistic and realistic dimensions.

The film emphasize the role of narrative in shaping reality. The narrative is creating, not reconstructing of reality. Salto is a literary film. Important here are the dialogues. We hear lofty words, but they do not affect to the actions of the characters.

The main character played by Zbigniew Cybulski used his legend from “Ashes and Diamonds”. Tadeusz Konwicki polemize with form of myth and wrote this character especially for Cybulski, the most famous actor in these time in Poland. Zbigniew Cybulski was the hostage of role of Maciek Chełmicki, ex Home Army soldier from “Ashes and Diamonds”. 

The music in Salto was composed by Wojciech Kilar. The movie won award at Film Festival in Edinburgh. (TR)