A quality war film does not necessarily need spectacular aerial dogfights and bombed cityscapes. Only those movies have truly something to say that go beyond the crack of rifle fire to present personal dramas as well. Ferenc Kósa’s unusual, pacifist war film depicts the hell of carnage in all its senselessness. Characters of this gaunt, tight-lipped story wander through a beautiful landscape seeking their own truth or just the possibility of survival. The film is all the more memorable for the cinematography of Sándor Sára, the powerful screenplay and the acting of, for instance, Péter Haumann.
Tag: POLAND
A ten-year-old boy, son of a soldier who stayed in England after the war, cannot count on a peaceful childhood in Stalinist Poland. So his mother sends him to be raised by a friend as a war orphan. The company of his aunt, a horse-riding enthusiast and woman of unflagging spirit, becomes a unique school of life for the boy.
Tomasz, a doctor, and atheist, is diagnosed with cancer. His ex-wife offers him the money for treatment in Paris, but his lung cancer is past the operating stage. Facing imminent death, he questions the beliefs he has held all his life and starts experimenting with both his own life and those of others.
A train from Paris to Moscow arrives at Brest-Litovsk, a border crossing between Poland and the former Soviet Union. Since Soviet rails are 89 mm wider than European ones, Belarusian railway workers must lift the cars and change the wheels so the train can continue eastward. Nominated for an Oscar in 1995 and winner of numerous awards worldwide, 89 mm od Europy shows the gap that still exists between the countries of the East and the West.
A Polityka journalist visits a young girl in the countryside who devotes every free moment to high culture. Her main job, however, is to look after the farm and her old mother. Conversations between two women from different backgrounds are the axis of Marcel Łoziński’s film.
A poetic folk ballad set around the dramatic events of the Second Silesian Uprising of August 1920 – the story of the family of an old miner whose sons fight for the Polish identity of their land. The film does not reconstruct the course of the uprising – it recreates its atmosphere and creates a collective portrait of the Silesian people.
Horror, but with a comedic twist? Tadeusz Wilkosz decided to tell the story of abandoned objects from the attic. The titular sack goes on a rampage of destruction and begins to devour the numerous junks gathered there. Will the red beast devour all the things scattered in the attic? Puppet animation made at the Studio Małych Form Filmowych “Se-Ma-For” in Łódź.
A young man in his twenties leaves prison after a three-year sentence. He wants to start a new life in a place where he is not known and dreams only of a job, a wife and a family. He succeeds partially in fulfilling these dreams, but then runs into a conflict on a construction job between the corrupt boss and fellow workers secretly planning a strike. He becomes a pawn in one camp while remaining true to his ideals in the other. The unavoidable conflict destroys him.