The impossible mission of 'Mission impossible 7': blow up a Polish bridge

You can't conceive of a Mission Impossible movie without explosions. Even more so when it has Tom Cruise as the protagonist, who is preparing to shoot in space with NASA, after filming sequences hanging from an airplane, falling into space from 8,000 meters or jumping from one building to another, which cost him ankle fracture.

The objective of this successful action saga has always been to bring the spectacular nature of the scenes as close to reality as possible, just like its interpreter, who never uses doubles. To keep up with expectations, in its seventh installment, scheduled for late 2021, production planned to partially destroy a 114-year-old bridge in Pilchowice, in the Lower Silesia region of Poland. However, the plan has hit an unforeseen obstacle: resounding public opposition.

“It is in ruins and has no value. Not all old things are monuments, ” one of the two Polish Deputy Ministers of Culture, Pawel Lewandowski, in charge of managing audiovisual matters , told Wirtualna Polska . “The law clearly establishes that a monument is only that which has social, artistic or scientific value. In art and culture, that value only arises when there is a relationship between the cultural object and the people. But if an object is not used, it is not available and does not have that value. Therefore, it is not a monument, ”he added. In favor of authorizing the explosion, the possible benefits for local tourism were also used.

Lewandowski's statements provoked a harsh reaction from the inhabitants of the region, who called for the inclusion of the bridge in the list of protected national monuments. This Tuesday they succeeded: the regional government body in charge of heritage approved the request, although it is a decision that the national train company, PKP, owner of the structure, can appeal. Magdalena Gawin, Deputy Minister of Culture responsible for the preservation of sites of cultural interest, has promised that the Government will not appeal.

The 151-meter-long bridge flies over man-made Lake Pilchowickie, surrounded by the Sudeten Mountains. It was erected in 1906 at a time of rapid expansion in the region, when it was still part of Germany, with the aim of transporting the material necessary for the construction of a dam near a power station. The train line running through it connected the towns of Lwowek Slaski and Jelenia Gora and continued to favor tourism in the area even after the Germans blew up part of the monument to prevent the arrival of the Russians during World War II. Since then, it belongs to Poland, where it worked until 2016, when the connection was cut due to its precarious state of conservation.

At first, the film's producer, Paramount Pictures, sought a bridge in Switzerland to shoot a sequence set in the Alps, but the Swiss government refused to plan to destroy its infrastructure. So the company turned to a Polish subsidiary called Alex Stern to find another solution, which was found in Lower Silesia. As soon as the film's director, Christopher McQuarrie's choice of the site was made public on Instagram, the first criticisms began. “What must your ego be like to think that your film is more important than a historical monument that cannot be replaced? Let him use CGI [the recreation of special effects by computer], like everyone else does, ”a user snapped.

Peter Gerber, director of the Silesian Foundation for the Protection of Industrial Heritage, has led the revolt. He explains by phone that his organization received last December a visit from Robert Golba, director of Alex Stern, in search of locations to shoot in "with bridge and water." When he learned about the pyrotechnic plans of Mission Impossible , the mobilization began, although the appearance of the covid-19 seemed to stop everything: “I thought it was solved, but between May and June the idea was taken up again. We write articles in the local press and letters to the train company. They all said they didn't know anything, but it was false ”.

Both Vice Minister Lewandowski and Paramount and Alex Stern have defended themselves by saying that they never wanted to destroy the entire bridge and that the shoot was an opportunity for tourism. "We proposed to demolish the part of the structure that had to be replaced anyway [given its poor condition]," Golba responds in an email. “The people who argue that the bridge only needs to be slightly touched up have no engineering background. We have done a 300 page report. Our goal was always to roll, renovate the structure and bring the train line back to life ”, he adds.

Doubts increase when the debate moves to money. Gerber maintains that demolishing the bridge would mean incurring costs well above the restoration of the original structure - 27 million euros against 1.5 - and that the government has no idea where to get the resources. On the other hand, Golba says that part of the reconstruction would be financed by production and another by the state train company.

The controversy has reached international resonance, so much so that the director of the feature film, McQuarrie, has decided to publish a letter on the Empire website to clarify the matter. "There was never a plan to blow up a protected monument," he writes. “The area in question was eager to promote tourism. Local roads being what they are, your best chance to do so lies in revitalizing an outdated rail system. This includes the replacement of the main platform of the bridge in question, which the engineers have considered structurally defective ", the text continues, where it promises that the production has considered measures to protect the environment that surrounds the lake and accuses an individual of" manipulating people's emotional responses in a move that has compromised our ambitions to bring the shoot to Poland. "

Now that the bridge is a national monument, PKP is willing to offer another structure located in Stobnica, in the northwest of the country, although Gerber thinks that a protest movement similar to that of Silesia could emerge. Actor Simon Pegg has announced that filming will resume in September and that the first scenes will be exteriors. So the fate of the Pilchowickie Lake Bridge is about to be decided, although the new protection it enjoys seems to make production plans really mission impossible. However, its director is clear: “Would Mission Impossible blow up part of a bridge? In the name of entertainment? Absolutely. And for the benefit of the Polish film industry, the local economy and with the greatest care for the surrounding environment ”.