Szamanka

Szamanka (1996)

She's a machine.

Anthropology professor Michal develops two overwhelming obsessions. The first one is a mummified, 3,000 year-old, perfectly preserved body of a shaman he and his colleagues have recently dragged out of a swamp. The second is an enigmatic student he meets by chance at a railway station.

Date of release
1996-05-10
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (72)
Runtime
1h 57m
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Director
Andrzej Żuławski

Casting

Interesting facts

Szamanka is a 1996 erotic drama film directed by Andrzej Żuławski and adapted from a screenplay by Manuela Gretkowska. The film, which was controversial upon its release in Poland, follows the obsessive relationship between an anthropology professor and a strange young woman only known as the "Italian". The title is the feminine form of the word "shaman" in Polish.

Production

The screenplay had been written by Manuela Gretkowska, a Polish writer and feminist. The screenplay had initially been rejected by Polish Television due to its "controversial" content. The production was then financed by Canal + Polska, Visa Films, the French Compagnie des Films, and several private investors.

Written with a truly feminist mettle by a very young woman who has been enjoying dazzling literary success in Poland, the screenplay demands of the director a sense of restraint, mystery and depth that can make it address to young Europeans today. The violence, exuberance and sexuality of the author's text are as much signs of revolt as of intelligence.

Actor Iwona Petry was chosen by Director Żuławski after he met her accidentally in a café in Warsaw. Petry was at the time a sociology student, with no previous acting experience. Although there were rumors in the Polish press that Żuławski used voodoo to improve the performance of Petry, she was in fact trained by French coach Harmel Sbraire, who had previously worked with Juliette Binoche.

The soundtrack was written by composer Andrzej Korzyński, who had also written the soundtrack for Żuławski's previous films

Possession, The Silver Globe, and My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days. It is an electronic score and relies on two main themes. The first main theme, Szamanka, is used primarily in mood transition scenes. The second main theme, Zdrowas Mario, is used first in the sex scene between the "Italian" and Michał.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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