When the geopolitical situation is exacerbated by Trump's diplomatic rallies and his (un)expected alliance with Putin, and one more time we fear that the war in Ukraine will not end at all, the Max platform broadcasts in doses after 1 episode a week a fresh Polish series Pass. Producers advertise it as "a sensational thriller showing viewers the modern spy environment during the emerging conflict and many global tensions".
Unfortunately, contrary to the statements of the creators, Pass It's a chaotic pulp that's got colonial ideas in it. From the series there is simply a lively atmosphere of the besieged fortress, and the full planet revolves around Poland and Poles.
Who's who on the show?
Plot Pass is the following: an agent of Polish intelligence – a female with Russian roots and a harassed nephew helping migrants on the border – in a state of strong posttraumatic stress associated with miscarriage during a failed action in Russia, is urgently sent to Belarus to find the mole in the Belarusian-occupied mob of the Polish embassy. In fact, however, he tries to save his partner – both in sexual life and in the agency – tortured by putinolukashenko's officers. And yet in a distant background, we have the concentration of hostile troops in the area of the Suwałki gulf, meaning war hangs by a thread.
Based on this description, 1 might fishy that between the main character and the mole from the embassy there will be a sophisticated game in which both her partner's life and the outbreak of war will be at stake. Unfortunately, the screenwriters have failed, due to the fact that half of the series inactive doesn't know what the game is. In the 4th of six episodes, both main threads abruptly disappeared. The mole was identified and disabled and the main character's agent-partner was found. On the horizon, fresh spies, whose motive we don't know yet, have been swept up on the horizon, and we only have 2 episodes to realize them.
Characterisation Pass They show up and disappear, their background we meet suddenly, e.g. in the 4th episode, erstwhile we learn that the main character's father is Russian and it is not known whether any of this results. The crucial facts are alternatively told to us, not shown. The motivations of the characters appear abruptly (or not at all), alternatively of building themselves or revealing themselves as the action develops.
And even though the word "agent" means an active entity, the main character is not peculiarly active, alternatively carried by the currents of this confusing plot. She goes somewhere, individual drives her somewhere, stands, listens, sees someone. And erstwhile there is nothing to show on the screen, you can always show the heroine in her underwear itself, in her bra or without, in intimate scenes, resembling the brutal cinema of the 1990s. That's what women's heroes are for.
Ah, they're all about getting pregnant and giving birth, or giving birth to these babies and not having any more babies. Motherhood or its inability even in the tv series about an intelligence agent remains 1 of the constitutive features of a female character. Therefore, in the first episodes of the series appears the east parent of Polk named Maria, who functions as an alter ego of the main character. Maria, carrying a Polish kid in the womb, kills with a meat masonry of the Belarusian KGB agent. As viewers, we are left with the question: is Maria defending herself and the fetus, or in this scene symbolically Poland? Agent Eve can't have children, she dedicated motherhood to matters of state weight.
Entertainment or propaganda?
Here we slow come to what in Pass far more crucial than scriptural shortcomings, namely the way of presenting the surrounding reality. The series is an extension of political, militaristic propaganda, which has become a tool of force on civilian environments operating on the Polish-Belarusian border.
The show's action takes place in the spring of 2021. Although the humanitarian crisis on the Belarusian border began late summertime and developed in the autumn of the same year, the creators already moved it to May and placed at that time even those events that took place only in later years. After 4 episodes, it is not yet known why this crisis is applicable to the storyline of the show, but we know that the nephew of the main heroine is “in trouble” due to the fact that “helps refugees on the border”. That's all. You aid refugees, you get into bad company that doesn't realize the real world.
In this context, there is simply a unusual scene erstwhile young men – including the mentioned nephew of the heroine Eva – lead a group of refugees out of the barracks. Suddenly, a car comes up from which thugs jump out and start beating up young volunteers. There's no clear explanation for who these people are. They're in a civilian car and they pull up in a civilian car, and you can get the impression that they're any "locals" who beat up those who aid refugees.
The absurdity of this scene is that, especially at the first phase of the crisis, this kind of force against people active in assistance on the border was not at all the domain of any spontaneous groups of local residents or any organized fascist groups, but the authorities of the state – border guards and troops.
With us at the border – I compose these words from Podlasie – we already bet whether this thread outlined in the first episode and abandoned in the next episode, will not return at the end erstwhile volunteers and NGOs are associated with KGB/FSB to enter into a manipulated right-wing message about the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.
In Belarus, where?
But that's the small thing about the mutilated painting of Belarus that serves us Pass. The overwhelming majority of the action of the series is taking place in this country, but we will not see any Belarusian characters there – not counting KGB officers and anonymously agitated crowds who are besieging the building of the Polish embassy, which is to be an expression of disapproval after the assassination allegedly committed in Minsk by Belarusian Pole Dravich. (And I will remind you that the spring of 2021 is the time erstwhile the biggest civic rabble in its fresh history, following the 2020 presidential election, just rolled through Belarus.)
The end of the protests, choked by the forces of the regime, the device of violent repression works full steam, people are being hunted, sent to prison, flee the country. These escapes are supported by Polish consulates that issue humanitarian visas, and the most dramatic cases are escapes across the green border. No, the border defender didn't do pushbacks at the time.
The Lukashenko government accused Poland of provoking protests. As evidence, the engagement of independent media operating from the Polish territory, e.g.Nexta, but besides the state Bielsat, which reported elections and accompanying protests. In May 2021, at the command of Lukashenko, the Belarusian services “hijacked” Ryanair, which was flown from Athens to Vilnius by 1 of the creators of Nexta – present broken and reversed by the KGB – Raman Pratasiewicz with her partner. This event, which had no precedent before, led, among others, to imposing severe sanctions on Belarus, limiting access for Belarusian lines to European airspace. But you won't see any of these threads in Pass.
In Minsk, apart from KGB and FSB agents, the heroine meets only Poles. The creators of the series, who so praised the establishment of production in reality, alternatively of the facts ready for development, created fictional events, in which the centre was the Polish number in the form of members and activists of the Union of Poles in the East. 1 of them says during the public event that "today Poles are a number in this country, but not always so". Again, nothing.
Nobody explains anything, nobody explains anything. And I would give a lot if the individual who wrote this issue and put it in the mouth of the hero answered me the question, erstwhile were Poles the majority in Belarus? After specified a scene, I have the impression that the propaganda of Lukashenko does not gotta force itself to produce a context depicting Poland as a hostile country, which presents colonial attitudes towards Belarus – just let go on the government tv there Pass.
This show, however, explains something
After watching the show, it is hard to be amazed that Poland has specified a terrible policy towards its own national minorities. W Pass It can be seen that those writing and consulting the script confuse national membership with nationality. Members of the Polish number are presented as “our opponents” who say that Poland is their homeland.
The fundamental fact that they are citizens of Belarus is completely eluded here, and although I do not want to talk here on anyone's behalf, the primary nonsubjective of activities involving minorities, including Poland, is (or rather, given current conditions) to guarantee equal civilian rights within the Belarusian state regardless of nationality. Including the right to cultivate your own culture, language, etc. Many years ago Poland created an accelerated way of naturalization for people from the erstwhile USSR countries, which will show Polish origin, i.e. the alleged Polish Charter.
The fact that the Polish number did not pack in its entirety and did not leave this peculiarly repressive Belarus shows that it is about more than just a sense of connection with the Polish state – that they feel a bond with their country.
In addition, unusual stylizations from the 1980s are made, seemingly aimed at highlighting the late, collective and provincial character of Belarus. The Polish diplomat in the series warns the main character that she is “wilder and province”. 1 can get the impression that these "our opponents" are any kind of a reflection of Solidarity, which is stuck in time and in the corridors of the home of Poles in the East there are ghosts Geremek and Kuron. That this is any forgotten part of the Polish People's Republic, who failed to shed the yoke of russian business and establish real Poland where Poles utilized to be the majority.
Let's talk about absurd.
W Pass There are no little absurdities. The fanaticism of the state border is rather typical of Polish series with an east attraction. erstwhile you interfere with the lead of a plot, you simply ignore it.
Therefore, we can only ask ourselves the questions, how a Polish agent bleeding from her ancestral pathways went to the infirmary in Braniewo or how a Belarusian citizen (maybe with the Polish card) crossed the Polish-Belarusian border with a newborn kid without documents. Unless she was breaking through Bug, Piwisłocz or swamp in the Białowieża Forest.
Some of the Kaliningrad threads are besides funny, though most viewers may not catch them. What is this atomic object in the circuit, where 1 of the characters, a wealthy Russian female carrying the Channel logo, works? I may not know something, but I have never heard of any atomic institution in the circuit, and the construction of a Baltic atomic power plant has been written for losses many years ago.
Even more fun is the fact that Polish services discover that Russian atomic engineer is working on a dirty bomb, based on the isotope (stealed?) from the Zaporosian atomic power station. Do atomic engineers in a country that has a giant atomic arsenal truly have nothing to do but construct a dirty bomb to radioactively contaminate 1 square km of space?
But an absolute hit for me is the situation erstwhile a character coming to the circuit decides to go to Poland to track our main character Eva there. Rich Russian female tells her sidekick to prepare passports, and in a minute we hear from Polish services that she just crossed the border in Terespol. Technically, it can be done, but why? Why go through 2 countries – Lithuania and Belarus – erstwhile you can rapidly get to Poland through the border crossings opened even today, in conditions of war, e.g. in Gronów or Bezledy?
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Poles with Poles and Poles
However, these are details on the background reflected in the reality series, in which there are only Poles with Poles and for Poles, and the remainder are the enemy of the agent. The text on the black board at the beginning of the first episode introduces us to the reality, we learn that the annexation of Crimea through Russia changed the arrangement of forces, and the eyes of the full planet turned to the slide pass, which is the “Russian gateway to Europe”. But in PassWhen the war can start at any moment, there are no Ukrainians or Ukraine. There are no Lithuanians or Lithuanians either. possibly due to the fact that it's a series about the rivalry of 2 imperial powers that shake the full region, or Poland and Russia.
However, in the context of what the Russians call the "Suval Corridor", Lithuania is the main burden. It is due to this country that the Russians have the right to transit by individual and rail to the Kaliningrad region.
In 2022, just a fewer months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 1 package of EU sanctions hit this transit, triggering an aggressive reaction by Russian authorities and propaganda that threatened to usage atomic weapons to "clean up the Sludge Corridor". erstwhile the further escalation of the war by the Kremlin seemed likely, the Lithuanian authorities had to deal with the pressure. And that's erstwhile Politico has published a celebrated coverage with Druskininnik under the title The most dangerous place on earth. besides bad the creators Pass They didn't read it. due to the fact that alternatively of a series with the most dangerous place on Earth, they came up with a series about a monotonous Polish plain.
