Filmoteka Muzeum

In the centre of the city, in front of the St. Adalbert church in Poznań – the site where St. Adalbert delivered a sermon, before departing on missionary work – is an old bell tower clad in shingle. It is the oldest wooden monument in the city.

The sound of the bell merges with the natural sounds of the city. Whilst in the bell tower, the artist can hear only the sound of the bell, noise that renders all other sounds mute.
As Orłowski explains: “during the process of wrapping the bell’s clapper, an activity that drowns the natural percussion of the bell, a brand new, never heard before sound was produced, a sound that made the whole bell tower creak ominously.”

In this film, it is this creaking sound that is registered by the filmmaker.

“The heart of the bell was mute, you could only hear the shell”, says Franciszek Orłowski.