In 1961, Stanislaw Rozewicz created the novella film "Birth Certificate" in cooperation with his brother, Taduesz Rozewicz as screenwriter. Such brother tandems are rare in the history of film but aside from family ties, Stanislaw (born in 1924) and Taduesz (born in 1921) were mutually bound by their love for the cinema. They were born and grew up in Radomsk, a small town which had "its madmen and its saints" and most importanly, the "Kinema" cinema, as Stanislaw recalls: for him cinema is "heaven, the whole world, enchantment". Tadeusz says he considers cinema both a charming market stall and a mysterious temple. "All this savage land has always attracted and fascinated me," he says. "I am devoured by cinema and I devour cinema; I'm a cinema eater." But Taduesz Rozewicz, an eminent writer, admits this unique form of cooperation was a problem to him: "It is the presence of the other person not only in the process of writing, but at its very core, which is inserperable for me from absolute solitude." Some scenes the brothers wrote together; others were created by the writer himself, following discussions with the director. But from the perspective of time, it is "Birth Certificate", rather than "Echo" or "The Wicked Gate", that Taduesz describes as his most intimate film. This is understandable. The tradgey from September 1939 in Poland was for the Rozewicz brothers their personal "birth certificate". When working on the film, the director said "This time it is all about shaking off, getting rid of the psychological burden which the war was for all of us. ... Cooperation with my brother was in this case easier, as we share many war memories. We wanted to show to adult viewers a picture of war as seen by a child. ... In reality, it is the adults who created the real world of massacres. Children beheld the horrors coming back to life, exhumed from underneath the ground, overwhelming the earth."
The principle of composition of "Birth Certificate" is not obvious. When watching a novella film, we tend to think in terms of traditional theatre. We expect that a miniature story will finish with a sharp point; the three film novellas in Rozewicz's work lack this feature. We do not know what will be happen to the boy making his alone through the forest towards the end of "On the Road". We do not know whether in "Letter from the Camp", the help offered by the small heroes to a Soviet prisoner will rescue him from the unknown fate of his compatriots. The fate of the Jewish girl from "Drop of Blood" is also unclear. Will she keep her new impersonation as "Marysia Malinowska"? Or will the Nazis make her into a representative of the "Nordic race"? Those questions were asked by the director for a reason. He preceived war as chaos and perdition, and not as linear history that could be reflected in a plot. Although "Birth Certificate" is saturated with moral content, it does not aim to be a morality play. But with the immense pressure of reality, no varient of fate should be excluded. This approached can be compared wth Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blind Chance" 25 years later, which pictured dramatic choices of a different era.
The film novella "On the Road" has a very sparing plot, but it drew special attention of the reviewers. The ominating overtone of the war films created by the Polish Film School at that time should be kept in mind. Mainly owing to Wajda, those films dealt with romantic heritage. They were permeated with pathos, bitterness, and irony. Rozewicz is an extraordinary artist. When narrating a story about a boy lost in a war zone, carrying some documents from the regiment office as if they were a treasure, the narrator in "On the Road" discovers rough prose where one should find poetry. And suddenly, the irrational touches this rather tame world. The boy, who until that moment resembled a Polish version of the Good Soldier Schweik, sets off, like Don Quixote, for his first and last battle. A critic described it as "an absurd gesture and someone else could surely use it to criticise the Polish style of dying. ... But the Rozewicz brothers do no accuse: they only compose an elegy for the picturesque peasant-soldier, probably the most important veteran of the Polish war of 1939-1945." "Birth Certificate" is not a lofty statement about national imponderabilia. The film reveals a plebeian perspective which Aleksander Jackieqicz once contrasted with those "lyrical lamentations" inherent in the Kordian tradition. However, a historical overview of Rozewicz's work shows that the distinctive style does not signify a fundamental difference in illustrating the Polish September. Just as the memorable scene from Wajda's "Lotna" was in fact an expression of desperation and distress, the same emotions permeate the final scene of "Birth Certificate". These are not ideological concepts, though once described as such and fervently debated, but rather psychological creations. In this specific case, observes Witold Zalewski, it is not about manifesting knightly pride, but about a gesture of a simple man who does not agree to be enslaved.
The novella "Drop of Blood" is, with Aleksander Ford's "Border Street", one of the first narrations of the fate of the Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. The story about a girl literally looking for her place on earth has a dramatic dimension. Especially in the age of today's journalistic disputes, often manipulative, lacking in empathy and imbued with bad will, Rozewicz's story from the past shocks with its authenticity. The small herione of the story is the only one who survives a German raid on her family home. Physical survial does not, however, mean a return to normality. Her frightened departure from the rubbish dump that was her hideout lead her to a ruined apartment. Her walk around it is painful because still fresh signs of life are mixed with evidence of annihilation. Help is needed, but Mirka does not know anyone in the outside world. Her subsequent attempts express the state of the fugitive's spirits - from hope and faith, moving to doubt, a sense of oppression, and thickening fear, and finally to despair.
At the same time, the Jewish girl's search for refuge resembles the state of Polish society. The appearance of Mirka results in confusion, and later, trouble. This was already signalled by Rozewicz in an exceptional scene from "Letter from the Camp" in which the boy's neighbour, seeing a fugitive Russian soldier, retreats immediately, admitting that "Now, people worry only about themselves." Such embarassing excuses mask fear. During the occupation, no one feels safe. Neither social status not the aegis of a charity organisation protects against repression. We see the potential guardians of Mirka passing her back and forth among themselves. These are friendly hands but they cannot offer strong support. The story takes place on that thin line between solidarity and heroism. Solidarity arises spontaneously, but only some are capable of heroism. Help for the girl does not always result from compassion; sometimes it is based on past relations and personal ties (a neighbour of the doctor takes in the fugitive for a few days because of past friendship). Rozewicz portrays all of this in a subtle way; even the smallest gesture has significance. Take, for example, the conversation with a stranger on the train: short, as if jotted down on the margin, but so full of tension. And earlier, a peculiar examination of Polishness: the "Holy Father" prayer forced on Mirka by the village boys to check that she is not a Jew. Would not rising to the challenge mean a death sentance?
Viewed after many years, "Birth Certificate" discloses yet another quality that is not present in the works of the Polish School, but is prominent in later B-class war films. This is the picture of everyday life during the war and occupation outlined in the three novellas. It harmonises with the logic of speaking about "life after life". Small heroes of Rozewicz suddenly enter the reality of war, with no experience or scale with which to compare it. For them, the present is a natural extension of and at the same time a complete negation of the past. Consider the sleey small-town marketplace, through which armoured columns will shortly pass. Or meet the German motorcyclists, who look like aliens from outer space - a picture taken from an autopsy because this is how Stanislaw and Taduesz perceived the first Germans they ever met. Note the blurred silhouettes of people against a white wall who are being shot - at first they are shocking, but soon they will probably become a part of the grim landscape. In the city centre stands a prisoner camp on a sodden bog ("People perish likes flies; the bodies are transported during the night"); in the street the childern are running after a coal wagon to collect some precious pieces of fuel. There's a bustle around some food (a boy reproaches his younger brother's actions by singing: "The warrant officer's son is begging in front of the church? I'm going to tell mother!"); and the kitchen, which one evening becomes the proscenium of a real drama. And there are the symbols: a bar of chocolate forced upon a boy by a Wehrmacht soldier ("On the Road"); a pair of shoes belonging to Zbyszek's father which the boy spontaneously gives to a Russian fugitive; a priceless slice of bread, ground under the heel of a policeman in the guter ("Letters from the Camp"). As the director put it: "In every film, I communicate my own vision of the world and of the people. Only then the style follows, the defined way of experiencing things." In Birth Certificate, he adds, his approach was driven by the subject: "I attempted to create not only the texture of the document but also to add some poetic element. I know it is risky but as for the merger of documentation and poety, often hidden very deep, if only it manages to make its way onto the screen, it results in what can referred to as 'art'."
After 1945, there were numerous films created in Europe that dealt with war and children, including "Somewhere in Europe" ("Valahol Europaban", 1947 by Geza Radvanyi), "Shoeshine" ("Sciescia", 1946 by Vittorio de Sica), and "Childhood of Ivan" ("Iwanowo dietstwo" by Andriej Tarkowski). Yet there were fewer than one would expect. Pursuing a subject so imbued with sentimentalism requires stylistic disipline and a special ability to manage child actors. The author of "Birth Certificate" mastered both - and it was not by chance. Stanislaw Rozewicz was always the beneficent spirit of the film milieu; he could unite people around a common goal. He emanated peace and sensitivity, which flowed to his co-workers and pupils. A film, being a group work, necessitates some form of empathy - tuning in with others.
In a biographical documentary about Stanislaw Rozewicz entitled "Walking, Meeting" (1999 by Antoni Krauze), there is a beautiful scene when the director, after a few decades, meets Beata Barszczewska, who plays Mireczka in the novella "Drops of Blood". The woman falls into the arms of the elderly man. They are both moved. He wonders how many years have passed. She answers: "A few years. Not too many." And Rozewicz, with his characteristic smile says: "It is true. We spent this entire time together."
真的蛮喜欢林嘉欣的 父亲的角色有点弱 母女关系的部分蛮好的
很不错哦，对母女、家庭关系的描写很高级，种种冲突都在涌动，但又不是一一对应，而是错位地拧在一起。我一直觉得我不是完全地爱我妈妈，因为里面有恨，但是可能事情就是这样，有多少爱就有多少恨。
03非典那年我九岁，小学三年级，学校突然通知不用上课，我高兴到站在课桌上面蹦，被老师呵斥。电影真细腻，林嘉欣真好，03年真好。
影片核心命题，是关于长姐方仪的身份认同问题，以台湾身份和美国生活经历的失衡感，来呈现这种身份的模糊不定，带给一个家庭的影响。当然，有关身份认同问题，夫妻两个人的生活、工作环境，隐喻了台海两岸错综复杂的关系，比如妻子为了两个女儿成长，虽为台湾人但寻求美国更好的成长环境，而丈夫为了生计、讨生活不得已往返两岸。小女芳安则在片中近乎没有讲一句中文，她代表了完全西化、美式台湾人。方仪控诉母亲“因为你从来没有好好生活过”，对其罹患乳癌消极悲观的生命观，表达女儿的愤恨与不满。这本身就与传统文化当中的尊师敬重的礼仪所不符，因此，方仪这种文化、身份的冲突感，更加强烈。而最终母女和解戏码，大概是在于父亲的引导与暗示，方仪对美国的依赖，是一种现实生活的逃避。这在更大层面上，隐喻当今台湾与美国间的复杂且微妙的关系。
整体都很平庸，平淡不等于平庸，视听和故事都很一般，是拍出了很多中国家庭的相处场景，吵架和好又吵架又和好，彼此常常是生硬的对待，但骨子里又有血浓于水的爱，可仅仅拍“爱和恨是一体”是不够的，真实以外，电影需要更上升于生活一层的表达，何况电影对于爱恨一体的表达也停留在吵架，出手打人，还有言语上的“很爱很爱你”上。
期待太高以至于无法接受这么普通。
主题很小但拍的不错，林嘉欣是港台鼎盛时代末期的明星了，印象最深的就是她和学友的男人四十，这部电影里的表演恰到好处
大人对疾病的恐惧，与中产阶级孩子因理想不能如愿而产生的矛盾，或许还有台湾人不稳定的地方认同感。是很像女导演长片处女作的那种电影，虽然没有闭环地解决什么问题，但许多细节会猛烈地共情：绝症母亲、开心的餐厅、对马和自行车的喜爱…尘封的一些记忆又被吹开。几位演员们表现得都不错，不过布景的时代感还差一些。
硬要雞蛋裡挑骨頭的話，覺得吵架戲碼都較為單一，銜接到結尾豁然開朗讓人有點買不了單，但絕對是4.5佳作。
这种片子看多了，就像看多了陈凯歌张艺谋起家的类型片一样：压抑晦涩，充满阴霾。为什么华人的家庭片大都这种格调？让人选择的话，有多少人不会首先选择那种第一次见面就能嘿咻的生活方式？人生本已不易，内心多有伤势，这种泛泛的故事，真的只能唤起心中的无奈。而且，影片的这种结尾，在华人影片里也是烂大街了，或许这种形式是泊来的，但“微微一笑泯恩仇，轻轻一转待明天”的意境，并不是这么简单就能表现出来的。不需要结果…别指望明天…过好当下…这才更能让人心静。
家庭情节剧依靠情节驱动，意味着我们看到了什么，它就讲了什么，对人、事、时代欠缺更深及更多层次表达，余味是没有的。诸多细节太过于熟悉，明显拉近了我和它的距离，更容易让我沉浸其中，记忆被深深触动。电影隐含了几许观念的冲突，成为检验观众立场的试纸，体罚和罚站、强压式教学、家庭沟通模式，假设你是外来者，周边对你的排斥、嘲讽、欺负……我对这些一点也无法容忍，始终站在女儿的立场上并且毫不犹豫。（台湾社会进入良性轨迹，只微调细处就会变得越来越好。）
*梁芳安与梁芳仪之间的关系有点像我和我妹，可能多多少少会觉得父母双方或者一方会更偏爱妹妹，然后有时候觉得她很烦，两个人会告状会吵架，但没过一会妹妹又会成为姐姐的跟屁虫…梁芳安喊的姐姐就像是在喊我
并不是有多么好 对我来说是多不忍心说它不好 结局几分钟的确漏了一点气 但作为首作很ok了 或者当我给自己自我投射（自作多情）的感动加分吧 说了一个耳熟能详的故事不等于俗套 当中那么多与众不同的细节很有心 完全不觉得煽情（觉得煽情的请去看看梅艳芳和神奇老母）相反 点到即止得算有力 大环境的不如意、来自老师的压力、和父母沟通的不畅（双方的窘境）、好不容易走近梦想却发现它不可能 卧槽 走心了 有很多可以共情的空间 大女儿把所有人都比下去了 对不起林嘉欣 我看到她的表演只想起死因无可疑//看到大女兒和父母鬧矛盾的部分 我很慶幸我仍能感同身受小朋友 我尚未成為我討厭的大人
精心设计的剧本，从细到大处处皆冲突和困境。但感觉女孩对文化和自身身份的认同的展现太过执着，反而忽略了女孩与家庭间关系的更丰富的变化，一直感觉在围着一个问题争吵。而母亲的形象刻画得略表面，希望看到更丰富，反而着墨不多的父亲比较出彩，当然也可能因为他不是那个比较沉的角色更容易有张力。幸好母亲的弱倒是被林嘉欣的美忽略了。感觉不够喉。
爱与恨，就在一念之间。和《瀑布》有一点点像，都有冲突，结尾有点戛然而止了。
关于成长阵痛、中美文化身份认同、中式家庭关系之中矛盾与爱的无解，剧作处理其实有些浅了。整部想讲的事情杨德昌在《青梅竹马》已给出了答案：美国也不是万灵丹，跟结婚一样，只是短暂的希望，让你以为一切可以重新开始的一种幻觉。
真实细腻且生活化，设定在非典时期增加了代入感，加入了海归的设定增加了文化观念冲突，但归根结底也还是家庭的冲突，于是在吵架中，无法判断到底是谁的过错。人还是有情绪的动物，本想好好说话但却总变得情绪化，这样的过程十分痛苦，对我也挺感同身受。而情绪的释放则在得知妹妹没事之后，爸爸在楼道掩面痛哭，妈妈帮姐姐掏耳朵。只是释放完之后呢，继续积累情绪吗，问题似乎解决了又好像没解决完。
*关于追逐美国梦的这个背景，或许那个年代的台湾人会更有感触?但除此之外的很多场景都很真切。一个家只是几个人和无数很琐碎的事，但每个人之间的情绪、成长转变、互相谅解以及最真实的互相关怀与爱，都可以用很多场景去诠释，但无论是在什么故事之下，这样的表达都会引起观众的共鸣。整体没有什么太惊心动魄的起伏，感觉只是在安静叙述，挺好的，走心了
喜欢对女性间那种涓涓细流般的绵密情感有着细语般的 刻画，喜欢母女间温柔、明媚又直率的爱。非常细腻之余却没有刻意为之的矫揉。时间线被设定在于此刻相似却有距离的地方。没有那种必须为此刻宏大的历史记录点滴的逼切愿望，这些是可爱的部分。小女孩没有杂念，演得很好。
感觉比《瀑布》差好多，家庭的框支起来，结果不管是内里填的内容还是外在背景都表象化和程式化的。表现中式家庭的好电影太多了，这片虽然是导演亲身经历，演员表演也中规中矩，但仍然显得平庸。
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