Polish

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Before he got all famous with movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist, Roman Polanski created Knife in the Water, his first feature film.

Water is a small but incredibly engaging movie, taking place during a day trip on a Polish lake. In the film, upscale couple Andrzej and Krystyna (Leon Niemczyk and Jolanta Umecka) drive out to the marina to take a little ride on the water, picking up a tenacious, beefcake hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz, whose character is unnamed in the film) and letting him go along on the trip. Andrzej goes to outrageous lengths to belittle his passenger, as the two men obliquely battle for the attention of Krystyna. It all comes to a head with Andrzej pushing the non-swimming blonde kid into the water, right after tossing his beloved knife into the drink. And there’s more to come after that.Read More »

An excellent documentary on the great Zbig Rybczynski, spanning his entire career, from Kwadrat to his most recent Hi-Def works. It’s not an overstatement to say that Zbig is one of the great pioneers of the moving image; a true visionary whose influence and ideas can be found everywhere in contemporary filmmaking and advertising.

Fascinating and moving in equal parts, Zbig discusses his life and experiences and how they have shaped his work. An incredibly eloquent and engaging narrator and storyteller, the man is as interesting as his creations – a beautiful mind, an extraordinary artist and a remarkable man.Read More »

A young man and his girlfriend are staying at a camp site near to where a group of other young men are all camped together. The busload of boys leave first but, having packed all their stuff away, the couple pass them on their motorbike – ignoring their catcalls on the way. The couple soon realize that they have dropped their tent somewhere on the road and turn back to look for it – only to find that the busload of boys has stopped and found it first. The boys make a simple proposal – the tent in exchange for the girl. –bob the moo (uk)Read More »

a description by one of IMdB members:
This is such a strange and peculiar film. I had assumed it was a documentary and as such seemed to combine two Kieslowski strains – the meeting and the personal narrative. I kept thinking, as the man who was testifying before a Party Committee which was going to decide whether or not to expel him from the Party. As he tells his story, the curriculum vitae or ‘Life Story’ of the title, I kept thinking this was such a perfect Kieslowski story that he couldn’t have done better if it was scripted.

As it turns out ZYCIORYS was scripted. As far as I’ve been able to discover, the story the man tells was scripted, though based on actual experiences. How precisely or what amount of fictionalizing is involved I do not know. The committee is supposedly real, run by the factory secretary, a man of suspiciously movie star looks. Again, according to the material available, they really got into their task, giving an authentic grilling to the fictional offender.Read More »

a description by one of IMdB members:
With X-Ray I feel Kieslowski beginning to repeat himself. While his investigations of collective decision making at the workplace are superficially similar, he is mining deeper and deeper at a particular face exposing certain anomalies in Democratic Centralism. Here he collects the stories of men in a tubercular sanitarium which repeats, to a lesser effect, the methodology of Bylem zolnierzem (I Was a Soldier) (1970). After everyone has told their story, and are seen in a long shot sitting on a terrace attended by a very pretty nurse, Kieslowski delivers the punchline- a bus descends into a nearby town whose factories fill the valley with smoke containing who knows what health destroying toxins. Its all as simple as one, two, three.Read More »

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Kieslowski’s thesis film from the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz. A portrait of the city of Lodz. Images of buildings that are falling apart are accompanied by optimistic commentary about the city and its industries. @culture.plRead More »

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Portrait of factory watchman Marian Osuch, who turns out to be a fanatic of discipline wanting to control everything and everyone. A metaphorical image of totalitarianism. @culture.plRead More »

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A film about bricklayer Józef Malesa, a former ‘leading laborer’ and Communist Party activist. Malesa reminisces about his past, the Stalinist years and the turmoil of October 1956. The film provides a view of Polish history through the eyes of someone who was first seduced by the enthusiasm of building a new reality and then disappointed by the new order. @culture.plRead More »

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Warsaw’s Central Railway Station. ‘Someone has fallen asleep, someone’s waiting for somebody else. Maybe they’ll come, maybe they won’t. The film is about people like that, people looking for something.Read More »