Krzyk zatrzymany w stopklatce

Bilet powrotny (Return Ticket, 1978) by Ewa and Czesław Petelski ends with the main heroine’s scream captured in a freeze frame. The author of the article takes this gesture metaphorically, perceiving in it the impending catastrophe of the whole left-wing culture in the late 1970s. This frame heralds the imminent constraint on (people’s, women’s) emancipation narratives in Polish cinema and the gradual erasure of the left-wing tradition from the cultural field. The author analyses the various subjects of emancipation intersecting in Petelskis’ film. The image of the heroine, who is subjected to double subjugation, i.e., due to class (poverty) and gender (patriarchy), makes him ask, on the one hand, if the project of emancipation of social classes perpetuates the oppression of women. On the other hand, does the project of women’s emancipation dismantle class inequalities? Researchers and artists (but not filmmakers) have returned to the problem of repressed folk histories and class conflicts in the second decade of the 21st century, which suggests that the image of the subjugated others from Bilet powrotny, captured in a freeze frame, will be unlocked in Polish culture.