Walden, Victoria Grace (2016) Transcultural engagement with Polish memory of the Holocaust while watching Leszek Wosiewicz's Kornblumenblau. Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History, 22 (2-3). pp. 256-273. ISSN 1750-4902

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Abstract

Kornblumenblau (Leszek Wosiewicz 1989) is a film that explores the experience of a Polish political prisoner interned at Auschwitz I. It particularly foregrounds issues related to Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust in its diegesis. Holocaust films are often discussed in relation to representation and the cultural specificity of their production context. However, this paper suggests thinking about film and topographies, the theme of this issue, not in relation to where a work is produced but in regards to the spectatorial space. It adopts a phenomenological approach to consider how, despite Kornblumenblau's particularly Polish themes, it might address the transcultural spectator and draw attention to the broader difficulties one faces when attempting to remember the Holocaust. Influenced particularly by the writing of Jennifer M. Barker and Laura U. Marks, this paper suggests that film possesses a body ¬¬- a display of intentionality, beyond those presented within the diegesis, which engages in dialogue with the spectator. During the experience of viewing Kornblumenblau, this filmic corporeality draws attention to the difficulties of confronting the Holocaust in particularly haptic ways, as the film points to the unreliability of visual historical sources, relates abject sensations to concentrationary spaces and breaks down as it confronts the scene of the gas chamber.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Holocaust film, Kornblumenblau, Leszek Wosiewicz, Film phenomenology, Affect
Schools and Departments:	School of Media, Film and Music > Media and Film
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1993 Motion pictures
Depositing User:	Victoria Walden
Date Deposited:	15 Sep 2016 10:23
Last Modified:	13 Dec 2021 16:30
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/63350

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