Last night I drove down to the Miami Beach Cinematheque to watch Krzysztof Zanussi's The Year of the Quiet Sun (part of the Romance in a Can festival).
I parked right in front of the old Miami Beach City Hall. The cinematheque occupies the south wing, a beautiful, high-ceilinged space, its dark walls holding shelves of books. (A movie house and a bookstore too!) I found a collection of Francois Truffaut's letters, and read one to Alfred Hitchcock. "I have just finished filming Mississippi Mermaid," he wrote, "which, because Oskar Werner wasn't around to argue with me, was much more pleasant than the filming of Fahrenheit 451."
About a dozen people, including a Polish veterinarian I know, arrived for the film, which took place in an unnamed city in post-war Poland. It was the usual Zanussi concoction - suffering, questions about happiness (and humans' "right" to it), the emotive face of Maja Komorowska, and (since it was made in 1984) numerous allusions to martial law. The dark, brooding tone was far removed from the city outside.
When it was over, I gave Jadwiga a ride to her car, which was parked in the garage by Lincoln Road. As we drove across the busy pedestrian street, she said: "It's always crowded here. I love it. It reminds me of Krakow." And - except for the architecture, the landscaping, the vegetation, the balmy salt air - I saw her point.
