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10/30/2009

Hundreds of school pupils chattered away enthusiastically in the film museum in Lódz, the second largest city in Poland,. "A group from Germany has just arrived," the lady behind the museum till called out, beads of sweat standing out on her brow. "A Polish group has already gone in."

The madhouse here was not coincidental: the museum's new exhibition is about Roman Polanski (76), the renowned film director who has been arrested in Switzerland in connection with a sex offence he committed thirty years ago. The case has given rise to heated debate worldwide on crime and punishment and makes Polanski a hot topic.

Curator Krystyna Zamyslowska is happy with the success, but is also concerned about it. "It seems as if we are jumping on current affairs," she says. "Nonsense. You don't organise an exhibit like this at a moment's notice. This took two years of hard work." With the cooperation of the director, who opened his personal archive for the exhibit.

Honorary citizen

Polanski never saw the end result. He was apprehended a month ago on the basis of an American arrest warrant. The director must stand trial in the United States for having sex with a girl named Samantha Geimer in 1977 when she was 13 years old. The US has requested that Switzerland extradite Polanski; he is kept in custody pending this extradition.

Just a stone's throw from the film museum is the Lódz film school, a famous institute that has produced a number of great filmmakers, including Polanski. Lódz is proud of the filmmaker. He is an honorary citizen of the city, has his own star on the local Walk of Fame and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the film school.

But there is squabbling about his arrest here as well. "No one is above the law," said one teacher, smoking a cigarette on the steps of the school. "It has nothing to do with the law," retorted a colleague. "It is a political issue: Swiss banking secrecy has been under pressure since the crisis. With Polanski they hope to get on the right side of the Americans."

In the film museum the crowd shuffled past film posters, photographs and extracts from films. No attention is devoted to the sex scandal, except for briefly in the catalogue. "I refuse to see him as immoral," wrote Polish composer Wojciech Kilar, who often worked with Polanski. "I see the fact that he acts like an old bachelor as self defence, as a tragic echo in his soul."

Never stopped running

For the Poles, Polanski is not only a world famous and therefore exceptional fellow countryman, he is living history. As a ten-year old Jewish boy he escaped from the ghetto of Kraków, after his mother had been killed. He did not want to leave, but to stay with his father. The father swore at the boy and called him every name in the book so the hesitant boy would run. Polanski starting running and never stopped.

After the war he was seized with an unbridled lust for life. The dozens of anecdotes from friends that accompany the exhibit depict a pioneer and rebel, who did not shy away from insulting communist officers and playing dirty tricks at the film school.

In communist Poland Lódz was an oasis of freedom and creativity, where life moved to the rhythm of jazz. But for Polanski it felt like a ghetto. His first great success, Knife in the water (1962), got Poland its first Oscar nomination, but had hardly any screenings in Poland itself. The regime found the film 'bourgeois' because it featured a yacht that was much too expensive. Polanski ran again, this time away from Poland.

After Polanski's recent arrest, older Polish filmmakers and artists rallied around their colleague in support. The exhibit makes it clear why they did so. Polanski became world famous abroad with films like Rosemary's Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974) and the Oscar winner The Pianist (2002), but he also emerged to be a benefactor for friends left behind who could get no further in Poland because of political reasons. He hired them, invited them to stay with him or helped them find contacts.

Deep depression

He could not shake off destiny however. In 1969 his pregnant American wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered by a maniacal sect of hippies. In the nineteen seventies came the sex scandal, for which he is now in custody in Switzerland, an experience that has reportedly put the eternal survivor into a deep depression.

Curator Zamyslowska feared for a moment that her unemotional treatment of all these matters could lead to negative reactions, but that has not been the case so far. "The museum is packed every day," she said. "For us Polanski is a great artist, no matter what. Anyone who wants to know more about his private life can buy a newspaper."