Polska jesienią: studenci, grzyby, jazz i trochę Dostojewskiego

Autumn in Poland has a character of its own. Students return to the cities, the forests begin to smell of mushrooms, the light becomes warmer and more dramatic, and dusk arrives far too early.

I like this time of year. Especially in Polish cities, where the light can suddenly do something remarkable to an otherwise ordinary street. A little warmth remains, there is some gold on the façades, and an hour later it is dark and everything looks like a film set.

Add a large black crow, a few solid-looking bones somewhere under a tree, and the question: where do we go now?

The answer is obvious.

We go and eat something.

Culture.pl’s September cultural roundup fits that mood rather well. Warsaw Autumn had Signs as its theme this year and featured more than twenty world premieres. There were films, fashion, literature, festivals and even a little Hollywood. Culture.pl

Students love culture. At least the students I tend to meet do. Exhibitions, concerts, events, glamorous places and completely unglamorous places. Lots of people, lots of conversation, and sometimes quite a lot of intelligence and reflection.

And for some reason, sooner or later, everything ends up with jazz.

That is simply how it is in Poland.

There must always be a little jazz.

And every now and then Hollywood appears as well. Polish culture likes mentioning Hollywood. Oscars, Cannes, New York, Toronto, Telluride. This September there was plenty to point at: Marcin Dorociński appeared in Mayday alongside Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh, Paweł Pawlikowski won Best Director in Gdynia, and Polish films and filmmakers were once again circulating through international festivals. Culture.pl

Still, I sometimes feel that Poland’s full encounter with Hollywood keeps moving slightly further away.

Perhaps because Polish culture carries quite a lot of luggage. Historical luggage, humanistic luggage, Eastern European luggage. It is difficult to squeeze into two lines of marketing copy. You need to understand a little of it before you can really see what is there.

Polish culture also likes the highest level.

Prizes. Nobels. Oscars. Golden Lions. Best director. Best actor. The most important festival. The greatest success.

Everything should be at least slightly outstanding.

And why not?

Especially when high culture meets something completely ordinary.

Like the smell of teenagers.

Polish scientists were among the researchers behind a study of how parents perceive the smell of their children. Babies smell wonderful to their parents. Teenagers, apparently, rather less so. The work received an Ig Nobel. Culture.pl

That is, to use scientific terminology, interesting.

You can almost smell it.

Dostoyevsky also appears in the September roundup. Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s The Idiot(s) travelled through the Telluride and Toronto festivals. Culture.pl

Dostoyevsky always fits this part of Europe rather well.

In my own collection of Polish associations, The Gambler comes particularly quickly to mind. Gambling, obsession, honour, money, absurdity, emotions larger than reason.

A very Slavic mixture: everything is slightly tragic, slightly funny, and throughout it all you have the feeling that somebody is about to do something completely unreasonable.

What a heavenly place to be.

Yum.

Meanwhile autumn continues. Far too early, pumpkins, skeletons and Halloween will take over the streets, and shortly afterwards come baubles, reindeer and Christmas.

So before everything turns into seasonal decoration, perhaps we should spend a little time being cultural.

Being up to date.

Being fabulous.

And, if possible, being young.

The inspiration and factual starting point for this article was Culture.pl’s September roundup of Polish cultural events. Culture.pl