Connections, cronyism, inconvenient information. Paranoid conspiracy in contemporary Polish cinema
Abstract
The Polish national cinema is famous for its critical approach towards the government and official authorities and implicit references to the current social and political situation. The Polish Film School, The Cinema of Moral Concern or the works of such great auteurs as Andrzej Wajda or Krzysztof Kieślowski (esp. in his early work) bear that mark and must be analyzed in the context of politics. With the exception of historical movies, after 1989 Polish filmmakers openly distanced themselves from politics. The few exceptions that were released employ genre formulas to express political views. In my article I would like to focus on the usage of conspiracy paranoid cinema in Entanglement (2011), Traffic Department (2013), Closed Circuit (2013), and Secret Wars (2014). A brief history of paranoid conspiracy thinking in Poland precedes the analysis of the aforementioned movies. I also address the question to what extent the genre formulas shaped the world vision and ideology that inform those productions.
Keywords
conspiracy theories; Polish cinema; popular culture; politics
Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydział Studiów Międzynarodowych i Politologicznych Poland
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