The sun is subtly caressing Kacper’s face. His deeply blue eyes penetrate the camera as he looks at the blackboard on which his students decided by vote to choose him as form tutor. Even though he already knows he’s about to lose his sight, he picks up the gauntlet – he’ll prepare the class for matura exam. At the same time he’s going to try preparing himself for a different quality life, the one in which he accepts his condition and comes up with lifehacks that enable him to work at school and function outside his home.
Kacper Bielik (Andrzej Chyra) teaches history, he’s in his mid-forties, single and kind of a loner. Lives with his mother and has only one friend, Wiktor (Arkadiusz Jakubik). High school, where he works from years, is very important for him. Students love him for his sense of humor, forbearance and sensitivity to their problems. At the beginning of the movie Kacper loses his mom in the car crash and that narrows down his universe so that his only obligations are at school. Soon after that he finds out about his proceeding blindness caused by genetic defect he inherited after his mother (she was a carrier). Now he has to hide his problem in order to save the last, crucial thing that matters in his life – the job he loves.
What is beautiful about the movies relating to people struggling with various disorders is that after watching them we appreciate more what we have. Jacek Lusiński, not very experienced but efficient director, gives us vivid shots of the city of Lublin. It’s full of sun (Kacper sees better when surrounded by strong light), burgeoning parks and charming alleys. We catch glimpses from behind the trolleybus’ windows and rave about everyday beauty. We also experience stages of the main character’s disease. Lusiński obscures edges of the frames to show us how rapidly Kacper’s vision is getting narrowed. That’s an accurate technique, though sometimes it seems unreal when we compare the man’s tiny eye-field and activities he’s capable of without exposing his illness to anyone.
Carte Blanche is moving, I’m glad to say. Especially in lesson scenes, when we observe the warm feeling students and their tutor mutually share. Kacper takes specific care of Klara (Eliza Rycembel), wise and feisty girl, whose troubles at home lower her self-esteem. Their discussions give strength to each other, motivation to carry on. That’s pleasant to watch. But there are also scenes that touch viewer’s seams of sensitivity in sadder way, for example in a scene where Kacper is trying to find his mother’s grave at the cemetery and eventually, bathed in tears, he lights a candle on a huge tree trunk.
The movie makers didn’t lead to simple solutions, they avoided patterns. That’s why Wiktor is being highly critical of Kacper, sometimes unsupportive, on the other hand he’s there for him, he keeps Kacper’s secret even from his wife (and that causes troubles). And the love feeling that rises between Kacper and Ewa (also high school teacher) turns out more complex and not unconditional. Ambiguity makes Carte Blanche a bit more than just a jolly movie about the teacher’s struggle with illness and difficult youngsters.
“Carte blanche” means unlimited, free action or acquiescence to do so. In the movie the main character fights for this in spite of proceeding blindness, trying to “get along” with his condition. By doing so he’s in a sense associating with his students, who now, after taking the final exams and graduation, will have to leave their comfort zones and start a different lives.
*Remember Wojciech Pszoniak, Moryc from The Promised Land? You can see him in Carte Blanche too!
*Edit by Jędrzej Kościński
Polish Cinema Review 