Monidlo

OBSAH

There's a ringing at the door of an apartment of a worker Kaminski who hardly makes both ends meet. The guest asks for a cup of water and soon appears to be a smart and gabby peddler offering unusual service, making monidlos. (Monidlo is a term applied to a special kind of oil painting made upon a photograph i.e.a kind of "nice" (kitschy) picture, usually wedding portrait, serving as a souvenir among people of rather low esthetical taste. Common among peasants in villages, especially around the middle of the 20th century). Pressed by the cheek and expressiveness of the peddler, Kaminski becomes convinced that monidlo is a must for anyone willing to catch up on cultural behavior and have a higher prestige, and soon decides to order two monidlos, one portrait of his son Kaziu, and the other of himself and his wife. Problem arises when it comes to select suitable photographs to be used as patterns. All Kaminski had were poorly made old souvenir snapshots of various events like family reunions, funerals, social gatherings etc. They finally decide to take one from the Kaziu school identity card and another one, a group photograph taken at Kaminski's mother-in-law's funeral. The photograph showed many members of the Kaminski family, also him and his wife. The peddler promised to extract the couple's faces from the crowd to show them enlarged and embellished on the monidlo, to present them as young as they were while wedding. The decision to choose the photo is a cause for some further complications and unexpected progress of events.