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Take a dark older man and a beautiful young woman. Set them in a mysterious ruined villa amid rural surroundings. Show a crucial 24 hours in their lives. Light carefully, plot cunningly, use powerful music - and add humour. That's
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What makes this film so special is the care and thought invested in every frame. Light, movement, sound, pace, variety and performance are all planned. Nothing is there by accident. Everything is designed to enhance the impact of its simple tale. The theme is fleshed out with incidents which reflect on the characters and the main plot. It makes for a very rich viewing experience.
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I had the pleasure of talking to Olga Špatova many times at the
Festival of Nations in Ebensee, Austria in June 2005. We discussed the film
in detail and I revised these notes as a result. These are my own comments
informed by, but not necessarily endorsed by the film maker. A biographical
niote about her is available here. - Dave Watterson |
The title Mijeni causes translation problems. The usual English version is Passing By. Olga's preferred version is on screen Passing. It makes sense for at the beginning:
- the girl is on the point of passing from child to woman
- the man is passing from despair to suicide
- the girl is passing through the village - indeed no one else in the movie goes anywhere
During the film:
- they have a passing (platonic) relationship
- he passes from despair to hope and then to loss
- she passes from free-spirit to love-lorn, from life to death.
Almost every shot is illustrated in this analysis, showing its length in seconds and frames.
| The first shot shows a hand moving apples on a window ledge and one falls. Apples in motion - passing by - are a constant linking device in the film. They help bring the main characters together, form a link with the outside world (through the boy who eats them) and mark the passing of time as bites are taken out of them. At this stage we are simply puzzled by the image. |
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| Cut to feet splashing into puddle followed by medium shot showing that they belong to a girl having fun. |
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Splashing into puddles is a punctuation device in the film. Notice how two structural elements have been introduced in the first two shots. The girl may be passing through, but she is not dressed for travel.
Then we watch her passing by a village, catching the eye of many people and spreading happiness by her own charm and joie-de-vivre. Like many teenagers, she appears as life-force embodied. The music begins with a jaunty theme. It is the instrumental introduction to the song De cara a la pared by Portuguese-born international singer-songwriter Lhasa de Salla. [Olga: "The village is a gypsy one so their life makes a good contrast with the castle."]
The girl greets, amuses or distracts everyone she sees. She is the only one travelling. The others are moving very little.For the young men at one window she is a potential partner, for the boys in another window she is a sexy teenager, for the little girl she is a role model, for the older man the image of a daughter, for the woman a reminder of youth. The little boy behind a glass door seems suspicious of her - but we see her reflection as she pauses to look at him. It is the start of a strange connection between them. [Olga: "Emil was charming. He has a strange otherworldly appearance. I planned to get the reflection of Lucy in the door to establish the link between them."]
The scene cuts frequently between the girl and villagers - each shot being around a second long. The whole scene runs just 25s 13f.
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The shots of the dog are the first use of another stylistic device: quick jump cuts (17f and 19f) stepping closer to the subject. It is a little disturbing but serves to take us, the viewers, closer to the mind of the subject: this dog accepts her. The second shot of the boys in the window is at a different angle, indicating that she has moved down the street. The final shot is disturbing: a half-naked child by rubbish bins watching suspiciously. The music fades.
As if cued by this dark look, our heroine raises her eye and we follow her gaze to see the top of a run-down castle. She decides to investigate and heads off ... splashing through a puddle - so the opening sequence starts and ends with her feet splashing in puddles.
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This kind of splashing inevitably reminds us of Gene Kelly dancin' in the rain with its energy and fun fuelled by romance. It suggests a devil-may-care attitude, a willingness to throw aside conventional good sense. You may also think of quarantine - when UK had a foot-and-mouth epidemic other nations required us to step into a tray of disinfectant on arrival. The village is isolated from the other events in the film. There may even be a religious reference to walking on the water.
[Olga: "I love the location - a ruined castle not far from Prague."] We look up through branches and get a sense of the scale of the mansion. The camera tilts and pans across the branch in a disturbing movement. A starburst effect on the light enhancing the sense of "strange". Then we cut to someone rolling apples on a window ledge. We watch this through a dirty window - we are outside looking in. One falls to the floor. This relates to the very first image of the film - but then we were inside and part of the event. In silence she climbs through woods. Looking up the slope, she is tiny so the size of the mansion is established.
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We cut to a dimly-lit figure winding a clockwork gramophone and putting the needle onto a 78 disc. The second use of the jump-cut device takes us closer to the pick-up - not into its mind, but implying that what it plays will have special significance. Note the lighting. The man appears most of the time in near-silhouette. The darkness around him suggests the darkness in his spirits. It is strongly contrasted with the bright light which usually surrounds the girl.
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Finally we get a shot which establishes the apple-laden window ledge, the man and the gramophone. This resolves the slight mystery of the opening shot. The only sound is the run-in scratch of the record. We cut to a bright apple landing on the ground presumably the one which fell from the window sill, the violin introduction to the music begins and title appears "KRK Presents".
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The whole opening sequence from fade up to now has taken just 1 minute 22 seconds 12 frames.
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