Britain had Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979). Ireland had Father Ted (1993-98). Father Ted had The Passion of St Tibulus (1995) And now, in 2018 Poland has Kler, a film destined to have a similar long-term effect on how the established church is perceived in the country.
In the first week since it was released, Wojciech Smarzowski's film Kler has broken box-office records in Poland, with 1.7 million people going to see it, beating the previous record (another Smarzowski film, Wołyń).
I went to see Kler so as I could have my own opinion on a controversial and divisive subject. Given how the cinemas were selling out of tickets, I went to the Multikino in Złote Tarasy during my lunchtime and saw an amazing sight. The guy at the desk asked me about choice of seats, showing me a computer screen, almost all sold out except the front four rows and a few odd seats on the sides. As I stared at the screen, seats kept getting bought online with the speed of a computer game. Incredible.
The Friday evening audience was young - mainly corporate types at the end of the working week. From beginning to end the room was almost silent, especially as the audience filed out at the end. Colleagues at work who also saw the film earlier reported a goodly smattering of the fifty-plus demographic.
Across Warsaw's cinemas, Kler will be playing this Sunday a total of 176 times. Eight cinemas feel the need to start screening the film as early as 10am. Had Kler failed to resonate with the general public, it would have not been the box-office success it is. Clearly the film is meeting some form of social demand. On the British Isles, the established churches have been attacked with comedy. Gentle comedy, in the case of Father Ted. Laughter, not anger. Is Kler an angry film?
I think not. It carries a weight of sorrows; individual redemption and excruciatingly painful memory; it shows the danger of the Church hierarchy engaging in politics - and business, it shows the entrenched position of the Church in rural Poland. Is the portrait realistic? I feel that everything shown in the film has its basis in real life, but the film concentrates too many disparate strands (alcoholism, paedophilia, corruption, luxury, hypocrisy, Church-state relations), each one meriting a separate film. But then the success of Kler lies in the fact that many viewers recognise this composite portrait as being realistic.
As for the film itself; I don't believe that Polish cinema has as yet mastered the art of joined-up storytelling. There are too many threads that are difficult to follow; too many questioned unanswered, requiring a discussion afterwards (not necessarily a bad thing). As an art-form, the movies have their own meta-grammar, consisting of shots and edits, which decent story-boarding (done from start to finish before the first frame has even been shot) generally solves.
The offer for adolescents in Poland's small rural town often boils down to under-aged drinking and mischief or more wholesome activities laid on by the parish. Church-going in big cities is far lower than in the countryside; it is a useful exercise to compare the experience of Ireland to the prospects for the Church in Poland. Whereas 91% of Irish Catholics went to mass once a week in 1973, by 2011 the percentage of weekly church-goers had fallen to 30% (18% in Dublin).
Is the same pace of decline inevitable in Poland as it urbanises and its economy develops?
If the reaction caused by this film prompts the Polish Catholic church's hierarchy to open up about sex abuse cases over the decades, then no; if the church entrenches, digs in and blasts away at its perceived enemies, then yes.
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