Life writes the most extraordinary stories. This is certainly the case with Polish-Jewish author Leopold Tyrmand’s Filip, a novel with autobiographical elements which was first published in 1961 but then cruelly abridged by communist censors. Tyrmand—who came from a largely assimilated Jewish family in Warsaw—described this work as “a synthesis of the most important themes of his life.”
The censors in the People’s Republic of Poland had difficulty accepting his sometimes ambiguous portrayal of the war. Some critics wrote that Tyrmand’s novel was “anti-heroic” and even “anti-Polish.” Now, after more than 60 years, a film version of the novel—under the direction of Michal Kwieciński—has dispensed with any unnecessary pathos and martyrdom.
Premiering in Polish cinemas in March 2023, the film has recently become available on Netflix. With its dialogue a mix of Yiddish, Polish, French, and German, Kwieciński has succeeded in making an outstanding film that presents a rich, multi-layered narrative replete with unanswered questions. And in casting the talented Eryk Kulm Jr. in the role of Filip, Kwieciński has made a wise decision.
The success of Filip is based on excellent realisation, intense dramatic elements, a rousing rhythm, impressive staging, outstanding acting performances, and an exceptional musical accompaniment. The combined effect transports viewers into its world, without a single moment of boredom or interruption, whilst at the same time combining the moving and the dramatic in perfect harmony.
The protagonist in both the novel and the film is a young Jew named Filip, who accidentally manages to survive a massacre that takes place in an underground cabaret within the Warsaw ghetto (his survival is due to tragicomic circumstances: his trousers slip down, forcing him to go backstage.) Although he survives, the love of his life does not. Under a false French identity, Filip heads straight into the eye of the storm: Frankfurt am Main.
There are some biographical elements. Leopold Tyrmand also worked, under forced labour, serving as a waiter in a hotel in Hitler’s Germany; beyond this, however, his path was rather different from Filip’s. At the beginning of the war, Tyrmand was in Warsaw; but shortly afterwards he went to Vilnius. In June 1940, the Red Army occupied that city and in April of the following year, Tyrmand was arrested by the NKVD for his contacts with Polish independence groups and sentenced to eight years in prison for membership in an anti-Soviet organisation. Three months later, after the German attack on Vilnius, he managed to escape back to Vilnius. In order to conceal his Jewish identity, he obtained the documents of a French citizen and volunteered to work in Germany with the intention of travelling to France.
It was in Germany that Tyrmand worked as a waiter in a luxury hotel, together with colleagues from other occupied European countries. Although he led the life of a French waiter, he remained in contact with deported Polish forced labourers. In the film, like Tyrmand, Filip doesn’t want to only survive but to lead a ‘normal life’ despite the circumstances. This would be his form of revenge against the National Socialism that surrounds him and which dominates his country and his people. He knows that every day could be his last and that his false identity could be exposed at any time, costing him his life.
Filip combines camouflage and authenticity in his behaviour. He puts on a protective cloak to hide his feelings, longings, moods, and fears. He does not want to take on the role of the victim. Death can come at any time; this awareness is simply a natural companion in times when life seems unbearable. However, Filip rejects the role of martyr, as it would not help anyone.
At first impression, Filip might seem to be a cynic and an opportunist, a charmer who uses his personal charisma, a Casanova living in a Frankfurt hell. But it is a well-crafted façade, a wall that obscures his inner trauma, his despair, and his hatred of both criminals and the world in which he lives. In order to survive, he must not give in to these destructive feelings; they must not be allowed to control him.
Thus, a Polish Jew in Frankfurt am Main, under Nazi rule, pretends to be French; sometimes this allows him to lead a normal life, to go to the swimming pool with friends, and even to have fun. But somewhere inside him there is a terrible realisation that this normality is very illusory and fragile. All it takes is a moment of forgetfulness, of passion, of rebelliousness—or the effects of a bottle of wine from the hotel restaurant.
Filip could indeed survive as an obedient Polish forced labourer, but the uncertainty and the risk of losing his life would be much greater as a Pole. And as a Jew, he would certainly have no right to exist. Therefore, his only option is his assumed French identity, which he is able to convey thanks to his excellent grasp of French. His German is also excellent and, for obvious reasons, he avoids speaking his native Polish. Filip is therefore neither a hero nor a coward. He wants to survive to play the system’s crazy game that normalises societal evil and crime; but, in order to survive within the constraints of Nazi rule, he must suppress his instincts.
The mode of Filip’s bitter revenge, however, is not to engage in idle and petty retribution but rather to seduce lonely German women, preferably the wives of the SS officers who are fighting on the various fronts of the war. The risks are great: if German women are discovered to have had intimate relationships with foreigners, they have their hair forcibly shorn because their actions bring dishonour on the ‘master race.’ Foreigners, on the other hand, risk not only their hair but their lives: a firing squad or the gallows awaited them.
But Filip goes even further in his vengeful resolve, often revealing his Jewish identity at the end of such intimate encounters. The women panic, but Filip feels a cruel satisfaction seeing their fear. To one of them, who confesses that she longed for her husband who was fighting on the Eastern Front, he replies that his corpse will be discovered in a Russian trench. He draws the attention of another woman to the physical deterioration of her body—not so politely expressed in the film—shortly after he brings her to ecstasy.
Such actions display the moral ambivalence and the perverse traits of Filip’s character. Yet, in view of the situation, the viewer nevertheless begins to sympathise with him and his actions. It becomes possible to understand the avenger who has nothing left but his desire for revenge: revenge for the eradication of the ghetto, of his family, and of his normal life. The viewer is caught in a dilemma: although there is compassion for Filip, there is also the feeling that he is both angel and devil.
There are contradictions in his attitude. He remains silent when Germans kill his colleagues for offences that he has also committed, such as stealing bottles of wine from the hotel. He does not defend himself when a German officer punches him in the face. But there is another side to Filip: a man tossing and turning while screaming terribly—a lonely man, full of pain, torn apart inside.
Towards the end, Filip knows that none of his relatives have remained in Poland; they have all died. “I’ll never go back there,” he says to his friend Piotr. All these changes and ambiguities in Filip’s nature are perfectly conveyed by Eryk Kulm Jr., who deservedly received the Zbyszek Cybulski Award for his performance. The character of Filip is thus able to make us realise that man shall always be close to disaster until the end of his days. At the end of the film, in Frankfurt Central Station, against the sound of exploding bombs, German soldiers make their way to the left platform, where a train is waiting to take them to the front. Meanwhile, Filip and other civilians turn right, where a train to Paris will soon depart.
Tyrmand’s son Matthew [a member of the editorial board of this publication] says of the film adaptation that the family “is proud of the work that Akson and Michal Kwieciński and all the cast and crew did bringing this story—my father’s most autobiographical novel—to life on screen. His experience during the war hiding out as a Jew in the Nazi headquarter city of Frankfurt is the stuff of legend, and this film brought that legend to life. We are excited to see the reception from Western audiences as it goes live globally on Netflix!” This film adaptation proves to have been worth the wait.
