The Assistant, a caustic, deliriously inventive adaptation (or, as they call it, a “repainting”) by Polish directing duo Wilhelm and Anka Sasnal of Swiss-German Robert Walser’s 1908 novel of the same name, had its world premiere in the Big Screen Competition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival. It is no mean feat to capture the spirit of cult modernist writer Walser, who was admired by Franz Kafka and is often compared to him in his peculiar torments and talents, but the Sasnals do his unnerving work justice by bringing a punk edge of anarchic surrealism, absurdist humour and experimentation to the period drama. The Assistant is buoyed by enough left-field strangeness to limit mainstream release potential, but this quality should only augment the interest of diehard Walser fans and artistically adventurous new recruits.
The nervy but straight-talking Joseph Marti (an intense Piotr Trojan) quits as a bookbinder when his boss demeans him over a job badly done, plunging him into precarity. A vacancy comes with the formidable Tobler (Andrzej Konopka, also convincing), an engineer who has invented and wishes to launch a clock for trains featuring advertisements. The art-filled household of the ambitious entrepreneur, which is cut off on the outskirts of town, has also had problems retaining its staff. Tobler is feared as a petty tyrant, and his inscrutable, keyed-up wife (Agnieszka Zulewska), who likes to overstep boundaries, is no stranger to scandal. Hungry and desperate, Joseph is in no position to entertain doubts, and commits himself to pleasing his new providers, even though no conditions are clearly agreed between them and no wages seem to be forthcoming beyond meals and board. As his discomfort grows along with his closeness to the family, he must also contend with run-ins at the pub with his predecessor Wirsich, who was fired when drunk, is now penniless, and bears a bitter grudge.
Walser, who died destitute and unknown and was rediscovered in the ‘70s, struggled to support himself in low-paid roles as a copyist and an inventor’s assistant before a mental breakdown and institutionalisation. As his unfortunate professional life bears no small resemblance to that of Joseph’s, we can assume some biographical overlap to the feverish air of economic and emotional desperation that drives this psychic exploration of service and insubordination. The Sasnals, who already proved themselves adept at stylish but scathing social critiques with It Looks Pretty From a Distance (2011), make time somewhat fluid and indeterminate in The Assistant, a canny decision given the novel’s snug relevance to today’s austere era of neo-liberalism. Eccentric flashes of avant-garde dance and performance infuse a risk-taking, wild energy of danger and sporadic inner release (Wilhelm is primarily known as a visual artist, a sensibility bears fruit here) in a music-driven period drama lusciously shot on 16mm that is home not only to stolid browns, buttoned-down suits and the ticking of clocks but also the sardonic attitude of “I Don’t Owe You Anything” by The Smiths, furtive late-night debauchery and strobe lighting.
With his duties not clearly defined and the business’s financial difficulties mounting, Joseph becomes a factotum, holding off those demanding payment of debts, and penning awkward missives for the Toblers as their need for both a confidante and a believer in their visions deepens. His humiliation over their demands and outrage at their harsh treatment and neglect of their small daughter grows, as does his confusion over Mrs Tobler’s erratic signals. As his loyalty to the family is taken for granted, Joseph approaches his limit. This is a unique, inspired interpretation of a novel that has always deserved to be amplified and more widely appreciated, which captures the oppression of wage labour as an ever-repeating, co-dependent cycle of submission and rebellion. Personal dignity and basic survival grapple in a death-match, in a hostile climate in which few citizens can actualise their creative dreams and romantic desires.
Directors: Wilhelm Sasnal, Anka Sasnal
Screenwriter, Cinematographer: Wilhelm Sasnal
Editing: Aleksandra Gowin
Cast: Piotr Trojan, Andrzej Konopka, Agnieszka Zulewska
Producers: Wilhelm Sasnal, Ewa Przywara, Pawel Przywara
Sound Design: Michal Fojcik
Production Design: Ewelina Gasior
Production companies: Luna Film (Poland), Sadie Coles HQ (UK)
Sales: Lights On
Venue: Rotterdam (Big Screen Competition)
In Polish
124 minutes