‘Poland’ Archives
Best Foreign Film Oscar longlist announced
According to the Hollywood Reporter, a record 63 films are on the initial longlist for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. The full list is here, and these are the Central and Eastern European submissions: Azerbaijan: Caucasia (d. Farid Gumbatov) Bosnia and Herzegovina: It's Hard to Be Nice/Teško je biti fin (d. Srđan Vuletić) - [...]
The Debt
Dług Poland, 1999, colour, 102 minsI've been asked to write a short piece on the Polish director Krzysztof Krauze for the London Film Festival website (his latest film Saviour's Square/Plac Zbawiciela is screening there on October 24 and 27), so I caught up with his 1999 breakthrough film The Debt. I knew absolutely nothing about it in advance [...]
Peasant Diaries
Peasant Diaries Pamiętniki chłopów Poland, 1952, black and white, 13 minsMade the year after the overtly Socialist Realist propaganda film Destination Nowa Huta! (Kierunek - Nowa Huta!), Andrzej Munk's Peasant Diaries derives from the same tradition, duly adopting many of the same archetypes and clichés (you half expect the ruddy-cheeked [...]
Destination Nowa Huta!
Kierunek - Nowa Huta! Poland, 1951, black and white, 12 minsWatching Destination Nowa Huta! for the first time, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu, as this is undoubtedly the film that inspired Andrzej Wajda's parody of an early 1950s Stalinist propaganda newsreel in his film Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru, 1977). That fake film's poster-boy [...]
Polish cinema abroad
Anyone whose Polish is up to it may be interested to read this recent article by Ola Salwa in the Polish weekly magazine Przekrój - I was interviewed for it a few weeks ago. I can't even offer a précis, I'm afraid, but a Polish friend assures me it's very good.
Katyń links
I'm getting a lot of visitors in search of reviews of Andrzej Wajda's new film Katyń, so I thought I'd create a separate post offering annotated links - I'll update this over the next few days as more start to appear. First-hand account of the Warsaw premiere by Loxodonta (Defending Defense blog, 18 September 2007); Very brief comments by [...]
Culture clashes
Brief notes on two recent Polish films - Extras (Statyści, 2006) is a romantic comedy directed by Michał Kwieciński, which I'll be covering in more detail for Sight & Sound. It's a pretty standard genre entry, with assorted people being thrown into a certain situation and discovering their feelings for each other (or not, as the case may [...]
My Nikifor
I'm reviewing Krzysztof Krauze's My Nikifor (Mój Nikifor, 2004) in much more detail for Sight & Sound, but here's a précis: a quiet, understated, rather moving film about an elderly tramp (or so he initially seems) who installs himself in the studio of artist Marian Włosiński (Roman Gancarczyk) and produces tiny paintings on card at a [...]
Railway Junction
Węzeł Poland, 1961, black and white, 10 minsIn terms of conception and execution, Railway Junction is clearly part of the group that also includes the previous year's The Musicians and People on the Road. Once again, there's an abiding concern with presenting the lives of working people, though this time there's no distracting element of [...]
Wajda’s Revenge
I'd been meaning to watch The Revenge (Zemsta, 2002) for ages - it's Andrzej Wajda's last completed feature prior to this year's Katyń - and after other plans fell through last night I gave it a go. It's a mixed bag: on the one hand, it's hugely entertaining seeing two great directors clearly letting their hair down and having a ball (Roman [...]