Eastern European silents are a bit of a blank space for me so coming across Szalency (aka Crazy) (1928) was a great way to start filling in that gap. First time director Leonard Buczkowski delivers one of the first feature length Polish films that tells the tale of a dullard who becomes true friends with an ex-student to help fight for the motherland in World War I. After the student is wounded they add a third to their band, the brother of the family they hide out with while he's recovering from his wounds, who promptly joins the fight as well. Throw in his beautiful sister and all the makings of a war buddy film are in place.
Unfortunately, that's where things fall down. After a promising start with an exquisite triple split screen montage Buczkowski is unable to sustain the cinematic creativity and it settles into a bog standard, late '20s silent film with takes that, while perfectly competent, go on way too long, dragging the film into a 2 plus hour endurance trial. Don't get me wrong, it's good and perfectly watchable, it is just is nothing special. That said, it does provide an unexpected glimpse into the mindset of a country that sat between a warring Austrian empire and expansionist Bolsheviks, both of which coveted Polish lands. I think a lot of the problem was that it was produced with the 'cooperation' of the Polish military so there are extended battle sequences all shot from a distance that really add nothing to the story. Cool old tanks though.
This sounds harsher than I mean it to be, It's a good film, just not a great one and worthy for those with an interest in an underrepresented area of cinema.
