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Vision Quest How Polish artist Mariusz Wilczyński took inspiration from powerful and painful moments in his life to create his acclaimed first feature Kill It and Leave This Town. By Ramin Zahed
M
ore than 14 years ago, ,self-taught Polish artist, writer and director Mariusz Wilczyński set out to make a deeply personal animated short. As the years went by, that highly original project evolved and grew into a 90-minute tapestry of memories, characters from his favorite literary works and a deeply moving meditation about honoring and living with the ghosts of the past. In 2019, some fortunate festival-goers were finally able to see this labor of love, a project that was described by Indiewire as “a movie so lo-fi it makes Don Hertzfeldt look like Walt Disney!” Wilczyński, who has been creating highly creative animated shorts since the mid-’90s, been the subject of retrospectives at various museums and shown his work at the National Gallery in London and the Berlinale, says his project became more ambitious after he decided to have the role of an old train passenger be voiced by actress Irena Kwiatkowska, who was a childhood hero of his. Her dramatic reading made him realize what a huge difference a talented actor can make in an animated feature. “Her act-
ing made me realize what great impact an actor can have with all the mastery that she brought to my film,” he says. “I then created other characters, voiced by Andrzej Wajda and Gustaw Holoubek, and these characters also began to inspire me to create their identity and behavior in the film. I had their appearance, their words, I knew their manner of speaking, which helped me draw the characters precisely.” Another huge catalyst was a 2017 retrospective of his work at the Mill Valley Film Festival. “During that time I was invited to visit Pixar Studio,” he recalls. “They were just finishing Coco and I was given a tour by the great animator Doug Frankel. He took me to places that they don’t usually show visitors. That’s how I found out that they first come up with the characters and their lines of dialog, and then an animator records those lines, the lip-synched version is drawn and finally the star adds their voice to the project. So I decided to also use great Polish actors to create the world of my imagination, sensitivity and values … My goal was to surround myself with these people because I learned my values from them.”
Loss Inspires Art
According to the artist, his parent’s deaths about 20 years ago shook him quite heavily and inspired him to bring his experiences and emotions to animated life. “They separated when I was three years old, but they both died within a very short time,” he tells us. “My mother was the first to go. I felt very guilty for neglecting them, for being abrasive towards them, for not expressing love, especially towards my mom. I never told her that I loved her. At the time when they were both old and they needed assistance, when they were in the hospital, I never had time for them. I was busy doing everyday tasks, making my films and indulging in my hobbies. I was constantly telling myself, ‘I’ll call my mom later,’ or ‘I’ll visit her soon, but I have so much to do right now.’” It is quite painful for Wilczyński to look back at that time in his life. “You only need to do so little to bring joy to an elderly person — just a visit or a talk,” he admits. “But I couldn’t afford to do it — I was a self-centered egoist. I was always putting off visiting them or making a phone call. I would always say, ‘Tomorrow’ … and at some point, there
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february 21
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