JOWITA (1967) (Polish)

What a beautiful poetry and hidden gem of Polish cinema!

Janusz Morgenstern’s this masterpiece is marvelous treat to senses and soul of its viewers. The film surely an inspired one from French New Wave and almost entire film is pure ecstasy. From its very opening frames the film leads you towards aesthetic territory and mystery named Jowita. Barbara Lass is poetry on screen and this film owes as much to her as its maker. The classy jazz score and those moving pieces of violin in concert served as vibrations of mood motifs.

Marek is a promising athlete sharing affairs with more than one women. One day at masquerade ball his loafing eyes witnessed the most beautiful pair of eyes disguised in black veil of Turkish dress and instantly get him ensnared by her enigma. He follows her, she knows it. She meets him and introduced her as Jowita and told him to wait for her outside the gate. The wait ended in frustration for him and he gets himself obsessed in search of her. Finally at another ball, he meets her again but she said she is Agnieszka and not Jowita, who is her best friend. They became friends and lovers but still those eyes of Jowita remain a mystery. Who is Jowita? An unattainable object of desire or unsolved enigma of subconscious? 

Perhaps the film sums up Marek’s character and his internalizations through that advisable line he told to his coach’s wife with whom he shared another of his affair: ‘Life is a bloody Olympic games. People compete in various events and they strive to win even against themselves. One has only to decide which rules to follow. And just follow them.’ What he told her befits more to him, especially the last line. And his young co-athlete exactly knows him more than him as she towards the end shared that Peter Pan metaphor to him.

Jowita is something that I wish to watch again and its surely one of unsung gem of Polish cinema.