"Miłość"
Polska 2013, directed by: Filip Dzierżawski
The Second Weekend with "16" Film Club
The Sounds of Film Score
"Miłość" - dir. Filip Dzierżawski, running time 92’, 2013
A rebel, an autodidact saxophone player, a clean-cut analytical virtuoso, and an outsider created at the end of the 1980s in Tricity, Poland a brand new paradigm on the Polish music scene. Drawing on the alternative rock of the 1980s, Polish jazz of the 1960s, American free jazz and the avant-garde, they came up with a new concoction that defied old labels and required a neologism as its banner - that is how “yass” was born.
Rebellious, non-conformist, uncompromising double bass player Tymon Tymański, self-taught saxophone player Mikołaj Trzaska, who valued emotions over pitch control, hyper-analytical pianist Leszek Możdżer, and unintentionally solipsistic drummer Jacek Olter are the movers and shakers of the cultural change of seismic proportions that was generated by Tricity-based MIŁOŚĆ in the 1990s.
"Miłość" is a study in careful and astute film observation. The words that the musicians utter are used by the film maker as overstatement, not as stating the factual - the words provide contextualisation, which is the past and present history of the title band.
The film’s starting point is the group’s belated reunion. The former members of this erstwhile cult ensemble get back together to spend time in their company and to probe whether as a unit they are still of any sound artistic integrity and value. During the band’s inactivity, each of the surviving members – Tymański, Trzaska, Możdżer – went his own (separate) way, making a name for himself in the context of his own choosing. What Dzierżawski masterfully managed to capture is the fleeting nuances of the multi-layered and entangled relations of the (former?) friends. The film by Filip Dzierżawski tells a story of the genesis, growth, degeneration, disbanding, and endeavour to reunite the group. "Miłość" is one of the best music documentary films ever made in Poland.