14/11/2024 - Polish director Marcin Koszałka delivers an impressive work about a dark and little-known moment in history when blood ties were sorely tested

"I can’t forbid you from dancing with Germans, brother, but you’ll be doing it without me. We’re not going to be traitors." It’s into the height of the Second World War in The Podhale region of southern Poland, in the foothills of the Tatras mountains, that the highly talented Polish filmmaker and director of photography Marcin Koszałka delves with White Courage [+see also:
trailer
interview: Marcin Koszałka
film profile], his second fiction feature film after the acclaimed movie The Red Spider [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Marcin Koszalka
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Awarded multiple prizes at the Gdynia Festival, a hit in national cinemas (earning €1.2m in takings) and screened in a French premiere in competition at the 25th Arras Film Festival, this ambitious and spectacular, romantic and historical portrait broached from a family angle explores the paradoxical fate of the Highlander people, a collection of local clans united by their culture and by traditions which have endured despite European geopolitical turmoil. But this solidarity is undermined by the Nazi invasion, because ancient Germanic blood runs through the Highlanders’ veins.

The pre-war period is the setting for this story, revolving around real blood ties and a family drama: Jedrek (Filip Plawiak) and Bronka (Sandra Drzymalska) love one another (the young woman is actually secretly pregnant), but the iron wills of their fathers who lead the Zawrat and Wetula clans, respectively, lead to a marriage of convenience between Bronka and Jedrek’s older brother, Maciek (Julian Swiezewski). Passionate about mountaineering, Jedrek indirectly causes his father’s death in an avalanche and takes exile in Krakow, becoming some sort of circus artist called "the flying man" who scales cathedrals with his bare hands. It’s at this point that Wolfram von Kamitz (Jakub Gierszal) enters into Jedrek’s life, a German who’s equally keen on climbing and conquering snowy peaks, but who’s also a scientist in search of the original source of the Germanic race. Ultimately, war is declared, and Poland falls prey to Nazi ideology and the Nazi army ("every territory we liberate receives a certain ranking depending on its biological value in terms of racial purity"). Despite being perfectly aware of the occupiers’ murderous nature, Jedrek can see a way to ensure the autonomy and survival of his people. But not all the Highlanders share his view, least of all his brother Maciek. And the pressure from the Germans is growing…

Unfurling across several years, the remarkable screenplay (written by the director together with Lukasz M. Maciejewski) brings to the surface a thorny and fascinating historical episode with great accuracy; an episode which didn’t fail to cause controversy when the film was released in Poland. But by exploring the grey zone of survival and collaboration through a prism both fraternal (as per The Wind That Shakes the Barley [+see also:
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interview: Rebecca O’Brien
film profile] by Ken Loach) and cultural (traditions and rituals), the director successfully imbues the story with swathes of nuance and humanity whilst subtly sidestepping Manicheism. All in an incredibly beautiful formal setting, which sees the filmmaker (who also heads up the film’s photography) excelling just as much in interior shade (around fires) as in sublime mountain panoramas, and breathtaking climbing scenes in particular.

Produced by Balapolis in co-production with Monolith Films, White Courage is sold worldwide by Germany’s Media Move.

(Translated from French)