In Jewish folklore, a golem is an inanimate clay figure, brought to life when a magic word is placed inside its mouth. Piotr Szulkin’s dark 1979 film debut makes reference both to this legend and to Gustav Meyrink’s unsettling 1914 novel, moving the action forward from the latter’s fin-de-siècle Prague to a geographically non-specific dystopian future.
Tomasz Kolankiewicz’s booklet essay describes Szulkin and co-screenwriter Tadeusz Sobolewski’s struggling to adapt the Meyrink, Szulkin’s Golem ultimately becoming “a philosophical riddle about our true identity”, clearly alluding to “the day-to-day struggles” of life in late 1970s communist Poland.
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A narrator tells us about a catastrophic nuclear conflict back in 1941, reassuring us that plans to create artificial people are lies. Not quite: Szulkin (pictured below) cuts to a scene showing Marek Walczewski’s Pernat as he’s brought to life on the operating table, a cabal of shady medics putting a newspaper between his lips rather than an incantation.
Pernat is in almost every scene, Szulkin following his struggles to make sense of the world around him. Ostensibly simple actions like retrieving a lost coat or visiting a dentist become impossibly complicated, Pernat having to find his way around a bleak no-man’s land of crumbling tenements and long corridors.
Cinematographer Zigmunt Samosiuk accentuates the greys, browns and yellows, the colour palette of Golem anticipating both Gilliam’s Brazil and Jeunet and Caro’s Delicatessen. Pernat is a blank slate, a gentle innocent making a living as an engraver and surrounded by a dishevelled supporting cast who resemble extras in a Dickens adaptation. He’s on amicable terms with Joanna Żółkowska’s doll-shop owner Miriam, and at one stage goes out on a date with red-haired prostitute Rozyna (Krystyna Janda), daughter of his oafish landlord. It’s Rozyna who drops the strongest, most explicit hint to Pernat about his actual origins, his polite ignorance presumably programmed in.
Walczewski’s quiet, dignified performance is superb, especially in Golem’s bleak closing scenes. And do watch the closing credits, Szulkin slipping in an unexpected twist. This is a film which you’ll feel compelled to revisit post-haste; I’d suggest rewatching it accompanied by Michael Brooke’s informative and witty commentary, something that you won’t find on a streaming service. Second Run also include four early short films by Szulkin, the strangest but most compelling showing an apple slowly being crushed in a press.
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