"The Film Unit, Perspektywa" presents based on the novel by Czeslaw Milosz" "THE ISSA VALLEY" "Featuring:" "Music" "Director of Photography" "Screenplay and direction" "In my motherland, to which I won't return." "There is a huge lake in the midst of forest." "Any time I turn around I remember clouds." "Wide, turn at the edges, marvelous." "And a whisper of shallow waters at some murk dusk, and a bottom with its thorny water weeds..." "The lake of thorns is asleep in my heaven." "I lean over and see there, in its depth," "A glimmer of my life." "And what scares me is there, before death settles my shape for ever." "My luggage has been packed" "At the doorstep it's stacked" "I kissed good-bye my little Kate" "And she's crying for her fate." "He took a bottle and a glass" "And hit the road looking for a lass" "Bumpety-bump, bumpety-bump" "Watch the church's spire" "I will marry only Mike He's my heart's desire" "From soughing woods" "Came an uhlan corps" "Calling to my lover" "To join them at the war" "Calling to my lover" "To join them at the war" "He saddled up and rode away" "Now who'll keep me warm" "Through night and through days" "Now who'll keep me warm" "Through night and through days" "The war came and went" "But the lads are gone" "Damn you kaiser-killer" "I am left alone" "Damn you Kaiser-killer..." "Out!" "But my dear Balthazar." "I only want to help you." "You fret about no good reason." "Is it really about the land?" "Deep in your hear something is gnawing at you." "You are craving for a breakaway and leaving this place for good." "The world is big, Balthazar." "Cities, nights of music and laughter." "You would fall asleep on a riverside, free, all bridges burned." "One life would be over, another just begun." "Oh Jesus!" "There's no help for you." "Autumn, winter, spring, summer, around and around, until they come to bury you." "Have another drink, it's your only taste." "Your hand's made for the axe, feet to dance, throat to sing." "Will you hang yourself?" "No chance." "Why can others be happy?" "Why can't I?" "It's because each man is given a thread, his fate." "Either he grasps it and is happy to follow its lead," " or he doesn't." " Tell me what I should do?" "Nothing." "It's too late, my dear Balthazar." "Your time is running out, and so is your courage." "You have no courage to hang yourself, nor to escape." "You will rot." "As for the secret, don't let it haunt you." "No one will know." "It's between you and me." "Isn't everyone doomed to die?" "Sooner or later." "What's the difference?" "True, the veteran was not old." "But he had been away at the war for a long time and his folks have forgotten him a little already." "His wife will weep, but, she'll get over it..." "And the baby boy he cuddled was too small to remember his father." "Only you don't babble around over liquor about having a crime on your conscience." "But Father Peiksva?" "Yes, yes, you went to confess." "But you are not such a fool as to confess to everything." "You lied." "Certainly, it's nasty to be refused absolution." "So you lied." "You said he jumped at you with an axe in hand and you had to kill him." "Yeah, he jumped, but what happened next?" "Well, Balthazar?" "You shot him later while he was sitting in the bush eating bread." "He bled on the rusks and you buried them with him." "Didn't you?" "Out!" "Last Friday my son-in-law was here and took the handkerchief." "He says its real blood, real blood..." "It's a miracle!" "I didn't believe it until I saw it." "It keeps flowing, all the time." "Beyond the field, a forest and a field," "Huge waters shine with their white mirrors" "And the earth's gold-hued lowland, floating, like a tulip in a bowl, emerges from the sea." "Father says that this is Europe." "On clear days it can be seen distinctly," "All steaming after so many deluges," "A home for people, horses, dogs and cats," "Towers of multicolored cities sparkle," "Streams interlace like threads of silver." "And moons of mountains, something like goose down" "Here and there are scattered to the earth." "Hands up!" "Surrender!" "Out of my way!" "Damn you..." "Out of my way!" "Mama!" " It's been ages." " Good old Luke." " I am so happy to see you." " There!" "There!" " Oh, Grandpapa!" " Luke is goodness itself." "Oh, mama!" "Come on." "Wait." "Tommy, you're so grown!" "Good morning." "Hello, Balthazar." "Who's tormenting you?" "They or you yourself?" "They are." "Oh Jesus!" "And how!" "Come along." "No, Balthazar, I can't help you." "A king for a king, an emperor for an emperor." "Every power has its counter power and I am not up to that one." "Maybe you'll still find someone who's got the right power." "Just wait." "Who are you?" "Little Tommy, Tommy Malinowski." "I know you." "Want a puff, Surkont?" "Come on." "On the office of Sword bearer." "The creed of the Church of Jesus Christ in Lithuania, briefly recorded from Holy Scripture." "The defense of mentioned Office against all its adversaries, written by Simon Budny." "It follows from Holy Scripture, that a Christian may have his subjects, free and unfree, as long as they are treated in a God-fearing manner." "This being the year 1583 A.D." "This is not a Catholic book." "Long ago there lived Hieronymus Surkont." " He was a Calvinist." " A heretic?" "Yes, yes a heretic." "And did that Hieronymus Surkont live here?" "Did he live here?" "Mainly in Kedainiai, at the court of prince Radziwill." "The Calvinists had their church and school there." "Our family has a German line descended from that Hieronymus." "Some 300 years ago, in 1655, the Swedes invaded this land." "Then Hieronymus changed sides in favor of the Swedish king Carl Gustaff." " He was a traitor?" " He was." "But if fought the Swedes, he would betray the Prince in whose service he was." "He would be a traitor either way." "Radziwill had allied with Carl Gustaff." "So it was Radziwill's fault?" "It was." "Radziwill was a proud man." "He believed that the Swedish king would make him Grand Duke and so no longer a vassal of the Polish king." "Then he, as the ruler of Lithuania, would order everyone to adopt Calvinism." "And if he had succeeded, we all would have been Calvinists?" "I guess so." "I sometimes wonder myself how it is that we are what we are." "What does it depend upon?" "Careful, it'll spill." "Where are you off to?" "Bear hunting." "Good evening." "I see I frightened you, madam Helen." "No wonder you did." "You move like a ghost." " Where shall we go?" " Let's try that way, shall we?" "It's sort of eerie here." "What's eerie about it?" "God help me if I utter that name!" "I can handle him." "How?" "Speak to him politely and make him welcome." "Then he's harmless." "Jesus and Mary!" "How can you?" "!" "I am going back!" "I was only joking." "What are you doing?" "Granny!" "Someone smashed the window with a stone!" "Stand back, don't move!" "I got it." "Get behind the door!" "I know..." "There is nothing to know." "Maybe there isn't, maybe there is." "I've come because you are dumb." "Who taught you to read?" "Did you forget?" "You did." "Did I also teach you to pitch grenades at people?" "Even if I did, so what?" "They are not people they are lords." "Did you ever see me taking their side?" "The lords have sucked us dry." "We don't need them here." "They'll get killed until they run back to their Poland and the land will be ours." "You are a Lithuanian." "The Lithuanian is not a cutthroat." "And we'll take the land anyway." "Every Pole is our enemy." "The Surkonts have been Lithuanians for centuries." "Then how come he is a lord?" "Did you mean to kill him?" "No, it was all the same to me." "Thank God the grenade did not go off." "Do you know who would have died?" "Did they tell you?" "No." "Little Tom." "It was found under his bed." "Like father, like son." "Fool!" "Would you go to his funeral?" "Why should I?" "Now look here, Vackonis." "I know who put you up to it." "...And who was with you that night." "I am not afraid of your Iron Wolves." "All you're good at is fighting women and kids." "It is none of your business." "With such a sense of honor you must be a Pole." "Out of the way, please." "This area is closed, keep beyond those ropes." "White clouds, my terrifying white clouds." "How the heart beats, what grief and sorrow of the earth." "Clouds, white and silent." "I see you at dawn with eyes full of tears." "And I know that in my pride, desire." "Cruelty and a grain of scorn" "Prepare the bedding for a lethal sleep." "And the most beautiful colors of my lie veiled the truth." "Then I cast down my eyes and feel the wind blow through me," "Burning and dry." "How terrifying." "You are, guardians of the world, white clouds!" "Let me sleep." "Let the merciful night encompass me." "Please, people, take her to the church." "How could she take poison." "My God!" "It was bound to end like this." "It's not much of a coffin..." "What do you expect?" "It's a suicide." "Come on lads, let's put the lid in place." "Easy." "Come on here." "Smell it." "There, there, what are you up to?" "The landlord is afraid of you." "But you are not rabid, are you?" "Let me see your tail." "See?" "What bit you?" "Come on, let's go." "What if I pull the trigger?" "Will you drop dead or will you jump?" "Suppose man is to a dog what God is to a man, then if a dog bites a man he grabs a stick." "God bitten by a man will get mad too." "The thing is to enrage God into firing a thunderbolt and if he doesn't, you can forget him." "Look at that..." "One more refill, madam Helen." "Aren't you overdoing it, neighbor?" "He says the hay is in." "Mama spanked me on my back To protect me against lads." " Not drinking?" " I am not allowed to." "You may drink." "You are not longer a baby." "Come on, your health." "That you are a debauchee" "I must say that I like thee" "I like you in sun and rain." "For your kinks, that's in the main" "Hitch up six pairs of horses Take me to see how she is" "I must, I must, I must" "Please my soul and fast." "I must, I must, I must" "Please my soul and fast." "Four decades of happiness" "All your letters to witness" "Marry her to the devil" "She's old" "I will go for a prince Who is bald." "Now, stay, wait..." "Open up!" "Open up now!" "Or we will break the door!" "Colors come from the sun," "And yet the sun has no particular color, for it has the all." "And the whole earth is like a poem" "While the sun above represents the artist." "Whoever wants to paint the world in its colors" "Let him never gaze directly at the sun," "For he will lose memory of things he has seen" "And only burning tears will stay in his eye" "Let him kneel down and bring his face towards the grass" "And look at a ray reflected from the ground." "There he will find all that we have abandoned," "Stars and roses, and dusks and rising of the sun." "Why must I fade?" "Why must my arms and legs fade?" "Why am I, and yet I am not." "Only once did I live from the beginning to the end of world." "Oh, the sky and the sun will be there, but I will be gone forever." "Only my bones will remain." "Nothing is mine, nothing." "Oh, oh." "Judas, hey Judas!" "Judas, we got you!" "I am alive!" "Hurray!" "I am alive!" "Pardon?" "He says the war will end in the autumn." "Denis, you cover the lane, while Victor will get to the meadow." "I and Tom will wait here." "Just watch how Lutnia will flush them." "Didn't I tell you?" "It's Lutnia." "She is picking the scent." "It's faint and she must work on it more." "Duna!" "They flushed hares." "Now, now, now." "If you don't get there in time," "Dunai may leave you with half a hare." "Jesus Christ!" "Oh God!" "A monster!" "Tell me, Father..." "Tell me, Father how could the Grand Duke save Lithuania if it was either side with the Teutonic Knights against the Poles, or with the Poles against the Knights." "Are you listening?" "Are you listening?" "What about Tom's Father?" "No use talking." "It's likely he won't come back." "For joining the Polish army he would land in prison here." "It's expected he will send for the boy to take him to Poland." "They don't acknowledge coming from a small country." "All they think of is culture, big cities, Poland." "Some kind of poison seems to be getting' into people." "No it's just that things are so mixed up." "Tom's grandmother is of German ancestry." "In Prussia you get Lithuanian and Polish names, but they are all Germans." "Let's hope nothing bad comes of this confusion." "Little Lithua, precious freedom hidden in the sky, how do we find you?" "Is death our only refuge?" "Wherever a miserable man turns his eyes," "To the east, or to the West, he sees but misery, duress and slavery." "The Great Earth is flooded with sweat from work," "With blood from the whip." "Little Lithia, precious freedom," "Step down from Heaven and take pity on us." "Good day, Mr. Rabbi." "I am not the Rabbi." "What does the peasant expect of the Rabbi?" "Tell the Rabbi the forest ranger has come a man can't find a place to call his own." "Have you a farmstead, a wife and children?" "It is sins, great sins that make a hell of life." "I don't know if it is a sin, or fear or something else." "Tell the Rabbi I am in torment." "Alive, yet not alive." "I am doomed without a pious man's advice." "Do you pray to the Lord?" "That's what I cannot grasp." "After all, there is no way to get close to him." "But I go to church as required, why not?" "Hush Jews, he will speak!" "No man is good." "Whatever wrong you have done is merely your fate." "Man, do not curse your fate, for whoever thinks he has another man's fate and not his own, will perish and be damned." "Man, do not think what your life might have been like, for another life would not have been yours." "He has finished." "Magdalena!" "Magdalena!" "It's her." "Oh my God!" "Help!" "She tried to strangle me with her claws." "She pulled the blanket off me!" "Ripped my shirt!" "Mother of God." "Saint Joseph!" "He caught erythemia from the shock!" "Come on, lift up the lid!" "It's her." "Her complexion, hair," "Everything same as while alive." "Take it." "It's sharp." " You know what to do." " I do." "Love no country:" "Countries soon disappear" "Love no city:" "Cities are soon rubble." "Throw away keepsakes, or from your desk" "A choking, poisonous fume will exude." "Do not love people:" "People soon perish." "Or they are wronged and call for your help." "Do not gaze into the pools of the past." "Their corroded surface will mirror" "A face different from the one you expected." "There you are, Balthazar, only one life." "Millions of people are concerned" "With millions of problems, and what are yours?" "Sukont, Helen Jukhenevich, the shooting incident, it's all pretty small." "And why this does befell you in particular?" "You might have fallen anywhere, a like a star." "But you had to be here." "And you won't be born ever again." "The Rabi spoke the truth." "The truth." "You pretend to accept your fate, but actually you don't, do you?" "Knock the table over." "But what then." "I know that what you really want is to ask a question." "Go ahead, ask." "You'll get it off your breast." "Is it that if someone does something, he does it because he had to?" "It is this what rankles you, isn't it?" "If I am what I am now, it is because I have done what I have done?" "But why did I act so?" "Wasn't it because I had always been what I am now?" "Regret that the seed is bad, that wheat won't sprout from nettles?" "Sure." "Whatever happened..." "Looks like it had to happen and could turn no other way." "That's how man's life is ordered." "But I never know why." "I've sent the matchmakers, I don't remember why." "And then that Russian," "I could have just scared him." "I can't remember." "Tommy, shut the window, It's cold." "Shatibbel has brought a letter." "It's there, look." "Your mummy writes she'll be arriving soon and this time for certain, in a couple of months at the latest." " By what route?" " She has arranged everything." "You know that the border is closed, and she can't cross it legally." "But she knows of a little town where she can easily cross." "Will we go with mom the same way back or by way of Dyneburg?" "You will go." " I won't need it any more." " Don't say such things." "The pillows." "Can you straighten them up?" "So many birds this year." "Yes, Grandma, so many." "So many cats." "How come the birds are not afraid to sing?" "Goodamned mare!" "But Luke, there is no need to worry." "Maybe they won't divide up the estate." "This time they will." "Blackguards, thieves." "They'll ruin us and what we will do, miserable." "Move in with us of course." "You can help us run the farm." "Joseph Czarny, that nationalist, has informed on us." "That snake?" "Didn't I tell you the Lithuanians are all the same." "And you called them good and dear who mean no harm." "I would teach them a lesson with a whip." "We'll have to grease the hand of the land commissioner." "He promised to help." "Joseph won't have his way." "I think it's best to move into the forester's cottage." "They would thus see Papa on his property and me on mine." "One's home is one's castle." "Poor thing, he will perish?" "That bully who hangs around doing nothing all day, except drink his moonshine damned drunk." "And he is so fat as to be obscene." " Throw him out and that's final." " How could we." "He built the house himself, he looks after the woods." " It's no way to treat a man." " A man?" "He's not really a man." "For you he is the dearest Balthazar, the apple of your eye, a pearl dearer than your own daughter." "God forbid doing harm to anybody." "I didn't mean it even for a sec." "He could be put up here, in the manor." "He could help out." "What dreadful times we have lived to see!" "You have to treat any cad in kid gloves." "My God, it weighs heavy on my heart." "Poor Luke." "Give him some drops, perhaps." "All we need is one room at the Balthazar's." "Could be." "Just one small room to satisfy the commissioners." "Let them come and see." "But Helen, in the middle of the forest?" "At the mercy of that country hick?" "Come on." "It wouldn't be permanent." "Just once every few days." "It would get around that I have a farm of my own." "I'll talk to him, all right." "Joseph Czarny may be right to some extent from his point of view." " My God!" " Well, I never!" "I know what you want to enquire." "Go to the crones." "They have their methods." "They say you should add your menses blood to his food." "What about lovage growing in the everglades?" "I can't help you." "He isn't worth it." " Spit on the old lecher." " I can't live without him." "A nasty old codger with a hankering for noble ladies." "Don't waste your time on him." "So you won't help, Masyulis?" "Go and follow your nose." "What does he know..." "Sown in sin, the body is raised in glory." "Sown in weakness, it is raised in power." "Sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body." "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." "Amen." "Do not torment yourself, my daughter, but repent of your sins and God will be satisfied." "Sin." "Sin." "I am listening." "My son," " I will tell..." " Tom!" "Tom!" "Where are you?" "Come here, we need you." "Lay me on the floor." "I am choking." "My son..." "Constantine..." "Jesus!" "Save oh!" "And let eternal light shine upon her." "Amen." "And why were we so worried?" "Was it worthwhile?" "And why did we suffer without knowing each other?" "You would have lived with me." "I'd have found you a husband, and you'd have helped me with your courage." "How sad that people come to love each other only after death." "Is it hard to take poison?" "Tell me." "It's hard." "I was praying to God to forgive me and I swallowed it as I was on my knees." "But right afterwards I was scared and crying out for help." "And why did you haunt people?" "Need you ask." "Now you know." "Yes, it's true." "Now I know." "Curse death." "It is assigned to us unjustly" "Implore gods, let them give you easy dying." "Who, after all, are you?" "A trickle of ambitions, lusts and dreams" "Does not deserve a long death agony." "But I don't know what you can do with the death of others." "Children splattered with fire, women hit with buckshot," "Blinded soldiers," "Their death lasts many days, here, next to you." "Your pity is homeless, dumb is your speech." "And you are afraid of judgment," "For you could do nothing." "Go on," "more, more." "Now you!" " I can't stand it anymore!" " You can." "Turnover." "That's enough." "Come my love." "Oh saints in heaven!" "Saint Andrew!" "Saint Peter!" "..." "Romuald!" "Shout!" "Not enough!" "No enough!" "To live is not enough!" "Shout!" "It's wrong!" "It's wrong!" "Kill!" "Who?" "I don't know." " Barbarka!" " Take it!" "You swine!" "Chasing old broads!" " What?" "Are you out of your mind?" " That's for doing me harm!" "Barbarka!" "Barbarka, lay dawn!" "Oh my God!" " Gee-up!" " Hoo, hoo-hoo!" "Turn back!" "Turn back!" "My God, what did I do?" "Turn back!" "I'll never set foot there again!" "You bitch!" "I'll teach you!" " I'll beat romancing out of you!" " Gee-up!" "Just show up again!" "Only try!" "It's outrageous!" "I don't know what she is up to?" "Why?" "How dared she?" "She must be out of her mind!" "Mummy, please come!" "Come, mummy!" "Damn it!" "Damn it!" "To think I gave birth to him!" " Filth!" "Filth!" " Hush, Mama, calm down." "Oh!" "I got cramps in my stomach." "He has disgraced us!" "He'll kill his mother." "Oh, Denis, I feel weak." "Well?" "Mom is ranting and about to faint." "You'd better not show up now." "I no longer want to." "Couldn't you have made it more gentle for her?" "Don't you know her?" "Gently or not, she'd behave in the same way." " What now?" " Nothing." "She'll cool down." "But she says she won't give you her blessing!" "Too bad." "But I've got to marry Barbarka anyway." "Dishonor!" "Dishonor!" "It will be over soon!" "Over soon." "It will be over soon." " It's at Balthazar's!" " Fire!" "At Balthazar's Fire!" "Everything will be over soon." "Move on, men!" "It will be over soon." "Mommy!" "Tom, what do you want to be when you grow up?" "A priest, I guess." "What nonsense?" "Why a priest?" "For..." "For I... for I am worse." "That's why." "You know nothing of what you are." "I don't want to be left alone." "Mama!" "I said so little." "Days were short." "Short days." "Short nights." "Short years." "I said so little." "I couldn't keep up." "My heart grew weary from joy," "Despair," "Ardor, Hope." "The jaws of Leviathan Were closing upon me." "Naked I lay on the shores of desert islands." "The white whale of the world" "Hauled me down to its pit." "And now I don't know" "What in all that was real." "Poems translated by Czeslaw Milosz:" "Robert Hass, Jan Darowski and Lillian Vallee"