Ahh, that ever familiar sound of Polish punk-rock. Still rings in your eyes today, right? Well, no. This scene did not quite have the musical impact of its English and American contemporaries, but it did exist. This film explores how, in 1967, a Rolling Stones concert in Poland opened up many young eyes and led to a bubbling scene, which later exploded in the wake of punk at the end of the ‘70s.
The Polish people were heavily oppressed and confined by their government, and seeing the rebellious and anarchic nature of foreign punk, they soon followed suit. This film is a marvel on paper, and opens up a world of intrigue - in reality, however, it’s a little different. The film focuses half on the political issues and half on the music, and because of this we never really feel the impact of either. The problem is largely that Polish punk rock is kind of shit. The bands are really bland, the lyrics terrible, and the outfits worse. Their ideals may have been rooted in punk, but their musical ideas were based on mainstream rock (sunglasses on stage, nice hair, irredeemably bad clothing etc.), so the music rarely contains any genuine bite. This is a huge generalisation of course, but the fact is the vast majority had missed the boat, and the punk moment has passed. Some of the lyrics where plain to say the least: “Don’t tell me what to do”, “I’ll do what I want to do”, “I want to be free”, and so forth, all sung uninspired from a fireless belly. I couldn’t quite grasp if this was the limit of their lyrical imaginations, or if such messages under their strict government were genuinely considered a bold and outlandish finger up to the man. We are never really told either. Some of the police investigations and photo reports on punk youths are also hilarious, bringing home just how completely out of touch they were with anything resembling youth culture.
This film could have been wonderful, but it’s difficult to become engulfed in a movement that is so heavily steeped in mediocrity. When you see clips of these bands there are no hairs on the neck, no surge of pride for independent musical expression - it just becomes a slog to watch the bands.