By Robert St. Martin
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 1/11/24 – On Monday night at the Los Feliz Theatre in East Hollywood, the American Cinematheque provided a screening of a documentary film by Lea Glob – Apolonia, Apolonia (Denmark, 2023) – an idiosyncratic film about the Polish French painter Apolonia Sokol. This film stands out as a document of particular people in a particular milieu at a particular time experiencing life as it happens, not retrospectively. That is largely because director Lea Glob shot footage of the artist over a 13-year period of time. Lea Glob’s documentary Apolonia, Apolonia, about artist Apolonia Sokol, is a soul stirring feminist odyssey which pays homage to the women who fight to be seen and heard. Apolonia, Apolonia is one of 15 documentary films shortlisted for the Best Documentary Film at the 2024 Oscars.
Danish photographer Lea Glob first met Apolonia Sokol in Paris in 2009. She took photographs of her in cafes and bars. Glob says, “No motif has ever captured my eye,” in relation to how Apolonia became a roundelay for her work. She also says, “I was not in control. The motif was always moving,” about her thirteen-year journey following Apolonia as she struggled to stay afloat in cities all over the world and fought for her place as a painter.
Apolonia Sokol was born in 1988 to a French father and a Polish mother, the two of whom owned a Paris theater, Lavoir Moderne Parisien. This was a hub for all kinds of subversive plays, cabaret acts, and other performances, a space that was constantly running into rent troubles. The daughter of bohemian parents who owned an experimental theatre in Paris, Apolonia’s life has been documented from the moment of her conception (through a video her parents made) through to her birth. Long before Glob picked up her camera, Apolonia was alive through images. Amongst her countless struggles was the awareness that more people were interested in her itinerant life and her striking face than they were in what she was creating.
Apolonia was a “permanent daughter” – the daughter of Alexandra, a mother whose family escaped persecution from Stalin. The daughter of a man, Herve, renowned for his support of artists, but also a man who left Alexandra and Apolonia when she was a child leaving them homeless.
Growing up in this experimental theatre setting, Apolonia was surrounded by bohemian figures (artists, writers, performers) who were integral to her upbringing. Though she came and went from Paris after her parents split up (she left with her mother for Denmark), this theatre was her actual home when she caught the attention of young film student Lea Glob. Apolonia had returned to Paris to study at the École de Beaux-Arts and was dead set on becoming a painter. Glob (who states that no subject has fascinated her like Apolonia), asked Apolonia if she would be comfortable being filmed, and the answer was yes. What follows is the 13 years of Apolonia continuing to agree, and, consequently, an eventful document of both of their journeys as artists.
Glob strings together intimate footage of Apolonia, providing quiet narration throughout as Apolonia gets ready for a party, works in her studio, curls up in bed, or takes a bath. Sometimes, she is observed in the middle of business meetings, trying to interest gallery owners or other bigwigs in the art world. Other times she is at a gallery in front of her own paintings (here, we usually see both a public and private version of her). Special attention is paid to how one is forced to present oneself (especially as a woman), thus the many scenes in front of mirrors and private moments of self-consciousness.
It’s a trek that begins in Paris, follows Apolonia to America (where she falls under the sway of an arch-capitalist art dealer), then back to Europe, where she finally starts to have some success. At the Q&A, director Lea Glob explained the even the notorious Harvey Weinstein approached Apolonia and asked her if she would like to be in a movie. Her poignant reply: “I am only interested in painting. I am already in a movie.”
Some of the most memorable moments are not directly about either Apolonia or Glob. Oksana Shachko, a Ukrainian activist who founded the feminist group Femen, lived at the theatre with Apolonia as a political refugee, unable to return to her homeland. Her own attempt to find direction in her life lingers in the background of the action. Oksana died by suicide in 2018, and her presence has incredible impact. She also features as the main figure in several of Apolonia’s paintings.
As a portrait of the artist as a young woman, then, Apolonia, Apolonia is already layered and substantial, pondering as it does matters of individual creative principle, the predominantly patriarchal functions of critique and patronage and the economic reality of millennial bohemianism in its leisurely but gradually rewarding two-hour running time. But Glob, the Danish director who had a sizeable 2015 festival hit with the similarly ambitious, artistry centered Olmo and the Seagull, complicates matters further still, weaving her own experience as a creator, feminist and, finally, mother into her subject’s defiant trajectory.
For some, like me, this inward focus of the film’s concluding stages was a rather indulgent choice by the filmmaker. The film is framed by Lea Glob’s own early interest in photography which was partly influenced by her own Danish grandfather’s unsuccessful career as a painter. The figure of Apolonia as a painter and personality is so engaging that it is a pleasure to follow her in this film.
