21st Szczecin Film Festival - Lech Majewski Retrospective: "The Garden of Earthly Delights"

A metaphysical treatise on art and dying, a visually sophisticated story of love and death rich in cultural references; an adaptation of Lech Majewski’s earlier novel *Metaphysics*. The protagonists are Luis, a naval engineer and a loner living in a world governed by the principles of symmetry and arithmetic, and Bea, a terminally ill Italian woman born in London, fascinated by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, medieval alchemy, and the language of symbols. Chance determines the course of their lives, their mutual fascination, their fulfillment, and their crushing loneliness. It is a story about the relationship between two people trying, in various ways, to find and express the truth about their lives, drawing on the art that is ever-present in their world—art that turns out to be a kind of refuge and hope. Successive attempts to decode the meanings hidden in the thicket of abstraction bring the protagonists closer to the Mystery concealed in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting. It is the story of two people living in a “cocoon of death,” striving with violent movements to tear down its walls. The truth of this film lies in the gaze of the digital camera—it is the protagonist of *The Garden of Earthly Delights*, serving as an argument against despair. The effort to save and preserve life manifests itself in art, science, esoteric philosophy, and in all the actions undertaken by the characters. Lech Majewski Painter, film and theater director, video artist, screenwriter, producer, poet, and prose writer. This Katowice-born artist has created his own language of artistic expression, in which the universe of myths is a constant theme.