Władysław Pasikowski (1991-) and Dorota Kędzierzawska (1980-2012) are both highly acclaimed Polish directors educated at the renowned Łódź Film School, but where Pasikowski is known for his action packed and often violently male-centered cinema such as the Psy trilogy, Kędzierzawska is known for her dramas focused around deeply lonely women and children, such as Time to Die and Nic. Despite the immense differences in their styles and genres, the experiences and characterization of women in both Pasikowski’s Psy (Dogs) and Kędzierzawska’s Wrony (Crows) highlight the ethical dilemma in which women must choose between duty, whether real or constructed, whether to themselves or to others. Despite the extensive research on female representation in Polish cinema, none specifically draws attention to the complex similarities of these films or examines the ethical questions placed on their female characters. By analyzing  selected scenes from Psy and Wrony, I will demonstrate how these films portray and prescribe roles to women that  perpetuate historical, cultural and social constructs. 

Wrony centers the mother-daughter relationship of a young girl and her mother living in an unnamed Polish city. Wrona, the titular character, is a very lonely nine year old girl, who desperately needs parental support. Wrona’s father is never seen in the film, and her mother is seen only a handful of times, characterized as vain and uncaring in every instance. The audience sees Wrona’s mother forget to feed her, ignore her while a romantic interest is at the apartment, and consistently show a lack of initiative in supervising her. This portrayal problematizes the sense of duty a mother ought to have to her child, leading the audience to utilize their (unfounded) assumptions to place judgment on the mother despite not having access to the entire picture. Wrona’s mother is characterized as the antithesis to the archetypal  Polish Mother: a woman who sacrifices everything for her children, and in turn, instills an undying commitment to the motherland in her children (Ostrowska, 42). In contrast, Wrona’s mother solely focuses on fulfilling her own needs at the expense of her child, and the sanctity of her nation or society is of no concern to her.Wrona’s mother’s infrequent appearance on-screen and her resultant inability to defend herself against the judgments of the audience and Wrona, her duty is seen as going unfulfilled. 

Wrona, not receiving the attention and care only a mother’s love can provide during a crucial period, internalizes an idea of motherhood based on a seemingly functional and loving family. This internalized  image is based on a family Wrona sees eating dinner together while walking through a different neighborhood. She later returns to the neighborhood and kidnaps the very young daughter of this idealized family, telling the younger girl that she is her mother. 

Throughout the singular day the film takes place in, Wrona becomes frustrated with the implications of motherhood’s responsibilities, but still has care, tenderness and compassion for the younger girl. Wrona and the young girl meander around, somehow getting all the way to the coast, and traveling back by the evening. Wrona tries to reconcile simultaneously being a child and a mother, without having a mother who exemplified these foundational qualities herself. By the end of the film, she returns the kidnapped child, sacrifices her role of motherhood, and abandons her search for escape, which makes her more similar to the Polish Mother (Ostrowska, 38). Wrona had absorbed a societal understanding of motherhood and the caretaking it requires without understanding any of the enormous, intricate  stresses, responsibilities, and labor that accompany being a mother. The maternal care she never received instilled in her a lack of direction and agency, thereby impelling her to become what she needed her mother to be. The reality of being a child and needing love never disappears though, and the film ends with Wrona pleading with her mother to be held. She is asking her mother to fulfill her socially and historically assigned duty of motherhood. 

Similarly to Wrona, Angela, an orphan and the main female character within Psy, does not have a wholly attentive or loving parental figure. In Angela’s first appearance in the film, she is about to receive physical punishment during a class at the orphanage she resides in. She later alludes to sexual abuse perpetrated by the male caregiver at the orphanage, who is more than 20  years her senior. Already, the lack of safe parental figures has resulted in Angela being taken advantage of by the powerful men in her life. 

This pattern of exploitation continues after she is “adopted” by Franz. Franz, the protagonist with whom the audience is supposed to sympathize, a former secret-police member, and current regular cop, is yet another sexually exploitative older male figure within Angela’s life. He removes Angela from an abusive and unhealthy environment only to create another, one in which Angela’s food, shelter, and hygiene are all provided by Franz in return for her relationship to him as a companion and a possession to fulfill his sexual desires. Nowhere within this exposition are Angela’s desires, motives, or backstory explored. 

When Angela inquires about Franz’s ex-wife and child, he does not elaborate beyond the mere statement that his ex-wife left, “because she was a bad woman.” The absence of his ex wife or her perspective alongside the fact that female characters are solely utilized as sexual objects or images of male-idealized femininity, provides ample opportunity for misogynistic framing (Mazierska, 37). In essence, there is a dichotomy in the film’s female characters, representative of the Madonna-Whore complex: every woman is either a sexually provocative prostitute or a pure, family-oriented mother or daughter.  Not a single female character is portrayed as a complete person with her own narrative, thereby effectively stripping every woman in the film of agency and an identity separate from her role in men’s lives. 

Angela is portrayed as promiscuous and self-serving, rather than as an exploited teenager trying to survive. She utilizes her sexuality as a means of survival, to forge her own path, and to ultimately escape circumstances in which she is entirely dependent on the support of older men, who do not care about her happiness, independence, or autonomy (Mazierska,116). Beyond Angela's enforced submission and servitude to Franz, she is further viewed as the cause of any of his misfortunes. Instead of ascribing the root of the issues to the actions of the male characters, including Franz, such as their predatory and power-imbalanced relationships with Angela, the film urges viewers to sympathize with Franz as the protagonist. It paints Angela as not properly fulfilling her duty as a companion and thus worthy of condemnation by both Franz and the audience on their perceived moral highgrounds. This representation of Angela is in line with the hyper-masculine and misogynistic framework of the film, in which when women are consistently identified as the sole cause of the destruction of the male paradise (Mazierska, 116). She eventually leaves Franz to be with his close friend, Olo, who works for a criminal gang. She is not depicted as a victim, but rather as the perpetrator of harm, for serving her own interests and choosing to leave (or betray) Franz to be with another man, Olo, whom she thought would give her more money or opportunities. This marks her within the “Bitch” category as laid out by Mazierska, a prominent academic in the realm of Polish cinema, in which women in these misogynistic landscapes are illustrated as promiscuous and serving of interests that harm the male characters, specifically protagonists (Mazierska, 116-118). 

Near the end of the film, Franz kills Olo after claiming Olo slept with, “my [Franz’s] woman,” Angela.  In Angela’s final appearance in the film, she and Franz are speaking through the visiting phones while Franz is incarcerated. Angela is seen through a light blue plexiglass separator, which paints her in a darkened, by-gone blue.  This murder is a crime of passion, as Franz’s best friend is also ambiguously revealed to be betraying him to the gang, but also to be sleeping with his lover. This is in contrast to Franz’s and Angela’s last conversation, where he asks her who she is, and after she says her name, leaves the conversation. This highlights a dichotomy between the Angela that Franz sees as an object, or “his woman,” and the Angela who he comes to know in this scene, an actual person. The main difference between these two versions of Angela is that Angela as “his woman” is a nameless woman that is loyal to him, sexually permissive, and does not interfere or cause any strife within his life, whereas Angela as an actual person possesses independent thoughts, desires, and free will. Angela’s choices, with or without intention, granted her freedom from the orphanage, and ultimately, from both of the older, predatory men with whom she had relationships within the film. Her companion and sexual partner duties to Franz or the other men in her life could have perhaps saved Olo’s life or changed Franz’s fate, but ultimately serving duty to herself saved her own life. 

In the cases of both Wrona and Angela, their choices were deeply impacted by their circumstances and environments. The lack of stable parental figures, assumption of adult roles, and “otherness” prescribed to them by society created roles for them which they cannot fit, or cause them harm. Both women lacked caring and attentive parental figures, which pushed Angela into sexual abuse and caused her to use her sexuality as a tool for escape, whereas Wrona adopted the role of mother to fill the void of love and attention in her life. Both of these characters are children, albeit at different ages and stages of development. Angela is an orphan, Wrona is a neglected child, and both are not fulfilling either of their idealized roles as well behaved young women who are benefitting society. This otherness isolates them, but also frees them from complete despair or dependence on societal validation (Iłłakowicz, 737).  

One of the main differences between Wrona and Angela is their pattern of return. Whereas Wrona eventually returns to her mother and her regular life, asking for love, and hoping for change, Angela returns to different men, first leaving the orphanage (and the caregiver) with Franz, and then leaving Franz for Olo, and eventually ending up alone. These returns (or eventual lack thereof) can be understood in the context in which these characters exist. Angela has no parental figures to return to, and has faced exploitation and abuse from all of the male authority figures in her life, whereas Wrona can still return to her mother and has hope for improving her situation. 

The dilemma of these characters, whether to betray their lover/adoptive caregiver or continue mothering a different family’s child to fill the void of love, are both entrenched in a desire for agency. Both of these characters serve themselves, Wrona through the kidnapping and adventure as well as ultimate return of the child and Angela through her pursuit of independence using the resources of the men in her life and the sexual favors, gratification, and companionship they provide. Nonetheless, although Wrona and Angela make choices that seemingly arise from a duty to themselves, both of the roles they fulfill actually serve others, those of. mother and sexual partner. Despite the differences amongst these characters and their choices, they are tied together through the lack of a strong mother and an adherence to societal prescriptions of femininity, either through female sexuality or motherhood.

 Ultimately, through the use of historical, social, and cultural constructs, such as the idea of the Polish Mother, and misogynistic framing, Psy and Wrony portray the ethical dilemmas between duty to oneself or to others within the female experience. From assuming motherhood, to leaving a much older man for another much older man, Angela and Wrona are women whose narratives were impacted by their environments, men, and gendered norms of womanhood, but who also chose their own paths, and presented, whether problematic or not, representation for young women within the Polish cinematic tradition.