The formal opening of the 25th Polish Film Festival in America played to a packed house. Dignitaries, filmmakers, and sponsors from Chicagoland's Polish community and from Poland lent an air of glamour to opening night, as movie fans eagerly awaited the screening of legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda's "Walesa: Man of Hope." The master film director himself was given the festivals "Wings" award for lifetime achievement in cinema, and he sent a video greeting that served as the perfect introduction to the film.
An Oscar winner and frequent nominee in the foreign language film category, 87-year-old Wajda said that his latest film completes a trilogy begun in 1977 with "Man of Marble" and continued in 1981 with "Man of Iron." An unfiltered portrayal of Lech Walesa, the Polish shipyard worker whose leadership led to the fall of the Soviet Union, the two-hour film stars Robert Wieckiewicz, who transforms himself into a startlingly convincing representation of the leader of the Solidarity movement. Wajda masterfully mixes news footage from the period with the fictionalized version of the Nobel Peace Prize winner's life and times. This is a compelling film that neither idolizes nor demonizes Walesa, who ultimately became president of Poland but soon tumbled from grace and revealed himself to be something less than a giant among men. It is the story of a man who fulfilled his destiny and changed the world through determination and a gift for tough, direct speech.
