Agata di Masternak in the documentary “Twarze Agaty,” which will be shown at The New Jersey International Film Festival.
In 2000, when she was 16, the Polish artist Agata di Masternak was diagnosed with hemangioma-aneurysm of the jaw and cheek. It is considered a “lethal disease,” we are told in “Twarze Agaty (Faces of Agata),” an absorbing and profound 71-minute documentary about her that will be shown at The New Jersey International Film Festival in New Brunswick, June 8 (with all-day availability online, as well, on that day).
A painting by Agata di Masternak.
Di Masternak was initially told that she had two years to live. But she is still alive, and working in London. Drawing inspiration from her own struggle, she has become a prolific painter and sculptor, with much of her work devoted to themes such as healing and survival. “I thought that if I painted my hemangioma, I would get rid of it,” she says in the documentary.
She also remembers, “I vowed that (art) was what I would do if I survived.”
It has not been easy. She has had more than 40 surgeries to date, and 25 years after her initial diagnosis, her treatment is still “ongoing,” according to the film.
She discusses her ordeal in detail, and director Małgorzata Kozera follows her, literally, into the operating room, in order to add vivid detail to the story.
Kozera does not, though, tell this story in a straightforward, linear manner. There is no narrator to help guide us. Locations, interview subjects and people di Masternak are interacting with are often not clearly identified. It is up to us to construct a general timeline about when everything happened. And, oddly, Kozera saves some of the most important details about di Masternak’s illness until the very end.
Her approach is almost impressionistic. In addition to segments featuring di Masternak talking about her life, or working in the studio, or just hanging out, lots of example of her work are shown. There are also surreal, dream-like segments, and excerpts from interviews with Holocaust survivors that di Masternak has used in her work. Music is used very effectively, to help set the mood at several crucial moments in the film.
Agata di Masternak, as seen in “Twarze Agaty (Faces of Agata).”
A wonderful moment, towards the end, is simply a prolonged closeup of di Masternak’s face. After many surgeries that have scarred her (though the end result, now, is that you would never know what she has been through by just looking at her), she seems insecure and vexed, as she often does. But a smile starts to form. You can tell she is fighting it, but she eventually gives in, and allows herself to beam with happiness, for a moment.
There is one more shot in the movie, of di Masternak’s studio, with a ray of light coming through the window. But di Masternak’s smiling face is the last major image we see in the movie. Which is appropriate. This is, after all, a story about healing, and art, and the unique way that the two have intertwined in the life of Agata di Masternak.
At one point, she is shown on the day after a surgery, her cheek bruised and swollen so much she has to keep one eye shut. “I just want to crack on,” she says. ” ‘Cause it’s important, to keep myself sane. … Just by looking at colors, it really helps.
“By some miracle, painting has opened me up to the world. I was born again, going out through a tube of paint.”
The New Jersey International Film Festival will screen “Twarze Agaty (Faces of Agata)” at 5 p.m. June 8 at Voorhees Hall at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. The film will also be available online all day on June 8. Visit njfilmfest.com.
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