Search - Films & Videos by Zbig Rybczynski - Part 1 - Media on DVD

Early Polish Films from the High-Definition Video Savant

Nicholas Croft | New York | 03/24/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Zbigniew Rybczynski's "Media" is the first volume, in a three volume DVD series, showcasing the work of this internationally respected Polish filmmaker. Volume One covers Mr. Rybczynski's early years, between 1972 and 1978, creating animated films within the Polish studio system.

"Media" consists of ten short films, with durations ranging between 1':35" and 10':27". All were created utilizing a conventional film camera in conjunction with an animation stand. The use of the animation stand permits the filmmaker to subject his exposed film to a wide variety of post-production treatments, including: frame-by-frame time alterations, the spatial arrangement of many different image sources into one frame, colorization processing by the hand-painting of individual frames and by the application of moving mattes of various shapes to frame sequences, pixelization techniques, and image compositing through the use of traveling mattes.

Mr. Rybczynski's humanizing vision for these various treatments, always maintains that they be thoroughly integrated with what he intends to communicate to his audience. Happily, most of these films tend to defy easy, or "conventional" interpretation. Their amazing vitality, robust sense of conceptual invention, wry survival humor and non-conclusive endings all work to inspire a call for many quality sessions of repeated viewing.

Two of Rybczynski's films, in particular, work to dig their way deep into the psyche: "Soup", with it's uneasy surrealistic meditation on domestic angst and "Tango", which suggests a need to transcend the unsatisfying personal routines of our daily lives.

Zbigniew Rybczynski's self-release of this three DVD series, in 2003, was a major event for fans of avant-garde film. Their distribution now, in 2006 - through Microcinema, brings these captivating works to an even wider audience. This is pioneering work, clearly ahead of it's time, and richly deserving of your attention."