Quixotic Figures

Before reading the book that inspired the film, “Till varmare länder” by J.P. Jersild, I hadn’t anticipated how current this story would be. It was not only the matter of its social aspect or the suggestive descriptions of places and reality. It was rather its attitude towards life, one often ignored not only by cinema but also in real life. In the last two years, when everyday busyness calmed down, it occurred to me that there are more people akin to the characters in our film than I had expected.

Ewa, one of the main characters in the film, is a translator who gives private English lessons to make ends meet. It is not an easy or lucrative job. She lives alone but maintains a close relationship with her family. Both her parents and her sister look down at her, treating Ewa as the less successful daughter and more helpless sister. One day, Ewa receives a package with a notebook from her ex-partner Eryk.

Eryk got fired from university. He read his own thoughts during classes and provoked students. Therefore he met neither the expectations of the students nor his employers. Having lost his job at the university, he decides to take a journey. He takes his friend Olle with him.

As we learn from the notebook, the journey is not fully planned. The destination is somewhere called “The Burning Lake“, a place known only from literature, poetically described as distant and even unreal.

The protagonists are seduced by fiction, which is an important factor in understanding their behaviour. Experiencing reality through literature brings them closer to being quixotic figures.

In the film, Eryk's notebook becomes the source of the story. Ewa as a narrator and a guide tells us about the next stages of the journey. At the same time, she follows the story herself in a literal sense, taking a lonely journey to the places she reads about. She does it not to find her former love but to become a part of the described world. Both Ewa and Eryk escape from social control, duties, and responsibilities.

Why?

They refuse to participate in a world where the most important matter is a stability based on work, earning money, and meeting expectations of society and family. They are both perceived as lost introverts and losers who make irrational, surprising decisions. They are enchanted by fiction, which is an important factor in understanding their behaviour. Experiencing reality through literature brings them closer to being quixotic figures. Literature offers them a chance to create a different space for themselves. They are bound together by the common story.

By taking a journey to “The Burning Lake”, Eryk isolates from real life. But it's also Eryk who notes down the words: “We haven’t lost the track", describing both all the characters in the films and all the viewers who identify with them. It gives some sort of certainty about the decisions made, even though these decisions mean wandering more and more aimlessly. Both his journey and story have their continuation.

Anka Sasnal