Sławomir Batyra’s evocative and visually rich film showcases a Polish opera theater’s production of Madama Butterfly from behind (and below) the stage. The film is an observational tour de force; Krzysztof Gromek’s camera investigates, without narration or talking heads, the innards and secrets of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw. The variegated offstage world of this theater has more heft and mystery, the film seems to assert, than the opera performance onstage. Batyra highlights the creativity and seriousness of the theater staff: costumers, cobblers, carpenters, stagehands, musicians, and, at the controls, a commanding stage manager. The beauty and wit of the filmmaking go well beyond a tour of a working theater’s systems and structure into the realm of metaphor: a costumed player in silent meditation in the midst of preshow bustle, or the building’s improbable M. C. Escher–like “ascending and descending” staircase.  NK

Filmmaker Q&A following screening