We’re all bundles of contradictions yet few of us embody them as theatrically as performance artist Krzysztof Leon Dziemaszkiewicz, the subject of debuting director Wojciech Gostomczyk’s affectionate, at times touching documentary Leon. A deeply insecure masochistic exhibitionist (how’s that for opposites!), Leon had a modest career in Poland, but performance art is generally a young person’s mode of expression; now he’s middle aged and in the shadow of his partner, the designer Manfred Thierry Mugler. The documentary’s focus is on a new show he’s putting together in Gdansk, partly to feel validated again, partly to impress Mugler whose love and support is the film’s true heart. Including some discussion of Leon’s artistic process would have accorded him at least a modicum of intellectual weight, but Gostomczyk is more interested in his vulnerable self-image, balanced by Mugler’s quasi-paternalistic emotional strength. Leon the film will fit comfortably into docu and LGBTQ programs.
Performance art, as a rule, is inherently transgressive and spectacular, which pretty much describes Leon’s brand of 1980s-style happenings in which he appears painted in garish colors, often decorated in feathers like a fanciful bird of paradise. At times he pours honey over himself in a forest and rolls around in the earth, or on-stage takes a scissor to his clothes until his heavily painted naked body is exposed while he writhes on the floor. At least as seen in the documentary, his works are largely wordless, though he sometimes makes peacock or gorilla sounds, and by the end he’s usually nude.
It all feels pretty derivative, just a more colorful, queerified version of the sort of thing done in the 1980s when Karen Finley’s “Yams Up My Grannie’s Ass” was creating such a fuss. However, Finley and most others were articulate about the concept and its goals, whereas Gostomczyk frustratingly doesn’t include any footage of Leon discussing the meaning behind his performances. This is clearly a directorial choice, and while the film’s strength is the way it shows Leon’s vulnerability calmed by his more famous partner’s devotion, a little background organically inserted would have added depth to the portrait. Instead, Leon begins in 2019 and apart from a scene where the couple watch a video of Mugler’s storied 1995 haute couture show, there’s no looking back.
The designer’s celebrity status and his global impact is the elephant in every room, contributing to Leon’s insecurity even though Mugler’s emotional (and sometimes financial) generosity is unwavering and unquestioned. This becomes painfully clear during the retrospective exhibition in Rotterdam’s Kunsthal, when Leon desperately wants to perform. We see him anxiously working the crowd at the opening, urging them to stay for his act; he probably considered it a flourish to this tribute to his partner’s career, but the truth is it feels very much like he’s unable to deal with Mugler’s fame and wants a part of it for himself. To the designer’s enormous credit, he watches with pride as Leon frenziedly wraps his naked body in shiny black tape, creating a kind of headdress apparently filled with honey that oozes over the white feathers stuffed inside. Those still at the reception seem to cover their perplexity with patronizing smiles while Mugler beams.
Knowing he’s at a crossroads, Leon decides to orchestrate a grand performance piece at Gdansk’s Shakespeare Theatre (apparently with Mugler’s financial backing), where he can take center stage. He gathers former collaborators, most of whom are in the same age bracket and also come from the Polish avant-garde, as well as his son Konstanty Spiralski, whose unresolved father issues have had a toxic effect on his psychological makeup. The result is a full-immersion theatrical experience (well filmed by d.p. Marcin Sauter) teetering on the edge of chaos in which Leon is the queen bee, though given that we see his neuroses during rehearsals rather than his conceptual ideas, we haven’t a clue about his intellectual underpinnings. Mugler is there of course, trying to stay in the background, his steadfast support like a lighthouse helping to guide Leon to the safe harbor of his arms.
That performance piece was in the autumn of 2019, a mere two weeks after the Rotterdam Kunsthal Mugler exhibition, though viewers can be forgiven for assuming it was a year or two later given the structure of the film, especially since it jumps from Gdansk to the designer’s funeral in January 2022. A shot of Leon weeping at a Paris café reinforces our sense that his life without the supportive warmth of Mugler’s love will be difficult, but Gostomczyk knows not to end on a downbeat so adds a coda with Leon in full get-up, green legs, purple face framed by a ruff of black feathers, lip-synching to Cuban singer La Lupe’s camp classic “Puro Teatro.” It’s the perfect finale and a true gift to the artist, gracing him with the regenerative power of spectacle, the “studied pretence” of the song’s lyrics, the “pure theater” whose artificiality is a haven.
Director: Wojciech Gostomczyk
Written by: Wojciech Gostomczyk
With: Krzysztof Leon Dziemaszkiewicz, Manfred Thierry Mugler, Konstanty Spiralski, Bozena Toloczko, Piotr Dziemaszkiewicz, Lydia Visconti, Bruno Visconti, Mariola Brillowska, Anna Steller, Katarzyna Wolinska, Magdalena Fracewicz, Krzysztof Balinski, Krzysztof Czerny, Michal Ciecka, Kevin Bonono, Valentin Tszin, Xiaoer Liu.
Producers: Wojciech Gostomczyk, Janusz Bogaczyk , Janusz Hetman, Anna Stylinska
Executive producer: Wojciech Gostomczyk
Cinematography: Marcin Sauter
Editing: Katarzyna Orzechowska
Sound: Marcin Lenarczyk
Production companies: Studio Metrage (Poland), My Way Studio (Poland), Lucky Bob (Poland)
World sales: The Film Collaborative
Venue: Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Newcomers Competition)
In Polish, English, French
81 minutes
