Tożsamość zmediatyzowana – iluzja filmowa i procesy deziluzji w prozie Jakuba Żulczyka

The purpose of this article is to prove that the characters in Jakub Żulczyk’s fiction not only tend to “think in film categories” (which is characteristic also of the people of the 21st century) but also almost obsessively look for their own reflection in the film which has become a kind of a mirror to them. Comparing oneself with the heroes on the screen and one’s life with the story in the film turns into an almost narcissistic, sometimes even basilisk-like (as it is spiritually destructive) staring into a looking glass. However, without such a confrontation a recognition of one’s own self, fate, life situation and worldview would not be possible. The author of the article discusses the artistic and extra-artistic/extra-literary meaning of Żulczyk’s characters’ seduction by an illusion of reality as shown in the film. Then she proposes nine different ways of “breaking the mirror” and freeing oneself from the entrapment in film simulacra.