The last film of Andrzej Munk, who died in a car crash during the filming. A former guard in the women’s section of Auschwitz encounters a passenger on a cruise ship who was one of her prisoners. This sets off a series of flashbacks concerning those terrible days, and the struggle of wills that took place between prisoner and guard.
Tag: POLAND
Tomek and Gucia are a pair of seven-year-olds. On a beautiful, sunny afternoon, they engage in typical children’s games after school – playing hopscotch and hide-and-seek, doing somersaults on the beater and climbing the wall. But above all, they play with each other – the boy tries to turn the girl into a boy named Piotrek. However, behind childhood games there is something much more serious – the first feeling.
In the 1940 Olympics, prisoners of a German stalag organized sports games in the underground. Had it not been for the war, they probably would have met the camp supervisors in the sports arena. Meanwhile, the SS men try to break them with punitive gymnastics.
Krzysztof Kieślowski unmasks the prototype of the informer and opportunist (in a totalitarian society) exclusively from the latter’s own perspective. Even the commentary is by the ambivalent protagonist. Kieślowski later kept the film under lock and key in order not to harm his protagonist.
On December 30, 1931 a 17-year-old daughter of engineer Henryk Zaremba is murdered. Rita Gorgonowa, a housekeeper, nanny of Zaremba\’s children, and his lover is accused of the murder. It was the most sensational murder of those times, followed with interest by the general public in Poland. The film is a reconstruction of the events, in particular of the trial itself. Majewski\’s picture raises the issues related to the functioning of the judiciary system, stressing the fundamental principle of law that in order to sentence an accused person indisputable evidence of guilt is required.
A story of life and death, featuring Marcel Lozinski’s six-year-old son Tomaszek and elderly people spending time on the benches of a Warsaw park. Riding his scooter, Tomaszek asks the elderly very adult, though basic, questions, which they are happy to answer. The boy’s ideas of future and life are confronted with those of people at the end of their lives.
Told in flashback as Prince Mieszko I lies feverish in his bed just before the Battle of Cedynia, Gniazdo recounts how the revered leader extended Poland’s borders, formed an alliance with Emperor Otto I, and ultimately strengthened his country’s autonomy by achieving victory during that crucial battle in the year 972.
A story of a middle-aged Jew methodically preparing himself to be shipped off to a concentration camp. The main character, Jacob Rosenberg, is a former industrial counselor, who is forced to work as a street cleaner. He knows what the fate is holding for him in the future, nevertheless he takes it with and implacable calmness.