Short Take: Afterimage

The final films of great directors are often taken as interpretive keys for unlocking larger bodies of work, and it’s tempting to view Andrzej Wajda’s valedictory Afterimage, completed before his death last October at age 90, as a veiled self- portrait. Several of Wajda’s most enduring titles critiqued the era and legacy of Communist rule in Poland, including his 1981 Palme d’Or winner Man of Iron, so it’s telling that Afterimage focuses on the stubbornness of an artist defiantly practicing his craft under the shadow of authoritarian rule. That shadow is made literal when we see the famed Polish constructivist painter Wladyslaw Strzeminski (Boguslaw Linda) sitting at his easel while a massive banner depicting Stalin is draped over his apartment window, darkening the room and the canvas. Wajda’s talent for crafting big, striking synecdoches of complex social or historical realities remained undimmed to the end.