Honorary Patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda under the 5th International
Karol Lipiński Violin Festival and Competition

Introduction: Magdalena Wichrowska

Charlie Siem is a modern man, a world-famous violinist and a handsome model, performing in the most renowned venues in the world. He is brilliant and charming, but this is only one of his personae under which lurks an egocentric who plans his career with great care and attention. A lover of luxury, he loves tailor-made suits and features in adverts of the most famous clothing brands. He is a ‘man for hire’, happening to perform at high-brow business meetings. Obsessively caring for his body, with studied gestures and glances, he has no idea of spontaneity and looks sad, depressed and alienated. Asked by the director Eva Mulvad about whether he misses love and friends, he replies that relationships take time and he must not while it away. In a conversation with his accompanist, he intimates that as a child he failed at school, often fell ill and felt lonely. The discussion with a masseur reveals that Siem has numerous complexes that he was driven into by his father who demanded from his son that he be the best at all times and at the same time held him in disregard. Charlie also confesses that anger is the driving force behind his actions that keeps him proving that he is indeed the best.

Eva Mulvad’s film picture reveals the figure of a ‘contemporary man’: a man without qualities, a emotionless cyborg who is always smiling and caring for his career, but is hopelessly unhappy with the actual life escaping him.

The film provides an opportunity to reflect on the life of each of us and shows, as Octavio Paz wrote, ‘Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition.’ But it would be worthwhile if we could notice in this film what the Mexican poet already discovered: ‘Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature … consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.’

*tickets to be collected at the CKK Jordanki's box office