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Reviews
Tatie Danielle (1990)
Must see therapy for those with mean relatives
This should be a cult film for those with mean elderly relatives. We have recommended this to folks with hypercritical mothers, mothers-in-law, and others, who also said "She's mean." And nobody else believes them, because the relative can be just so nice to others. we've seen the little smirk that comes across her face when she makes somebody else suffer. She is also willing to suffer herself, if it means others suffer even more.
This film rings so true that it must have been based somebody's actual experience. Packaging family angst as a comedy probably wouldn't sell in Hollywood, so we have to pick this up from the French.
Cinematically, it's better than average, with notable performances from Tati and her niece and nephew.
It's charming and amusing to boot.
Bedzie lepiej (1936)
Absolutely charming
The first of only 2 Tonko and Szczepko musical comedies from the late thirties Lwow . This is worth seeing for the very fine music alone (10/10), by Henryk Wars lyrics by Emanuel Szlechter, much of which is still very well known in Poland. ("My dwaj obacwaj," the two of us, "Bedzie Lepiej," it will be better)The Lwow setting is also quite lovely. Szczepko and Tonko have a an Abbot and Costello banter, which must have been honed on the Lwow vaudeville circuit. This movie is absolutely as charming as you would expect from a Jewish influenced theater tradition of eastern prewar Poland.
The story is screwball (in Polish, no subtitles as of now). Tonko and Szczepko work in a Lwow doll factory. A doll plays its tune wrong and song and dance ensue, followed by termination by the boring factory manager. While idling in the park, the find an abandoned baby. They repair the car of the factory owner's niece Wanda but the baby ends up left with Wanda, who decides to keep it, finally with the grudging endearment of the Uncle. Wanda and Uncle go to Warsaw. Szczepko and Tonko ship themselves to Warsaw in a big toy crate. They dicker with the Uncle and niece over the baby and end up running the unsuccessful toy shop. Their playful spirit saves the shop. The boring Lwow factory manager turns over a new leaf to the chorus of blonds playing grand pianos. Niece finds love. Tramps wander off into sunset.
Wlóczegi (1939)
Top movie of Warsaw, 1939
The music (10/10) is sufficient reason to hunt this up, with the brilliant work of Henryk Wars (aka Henry Vars who wrote the Flipper theme),and lyrics by Emanuel Szlechter. The most famous are "Tylko we Lwowie" -- "Only in Lwow" and "Dobranoc Oczka Zmruz" -- "Goodnight blinky little eyes" which have become a Polish standards. There are also fine exterior shots of Lwow as place setting. This premiered in April in Warsaw where the studio is located, in spite of being nominally in Lwow.
Finally, the entertainment folks from Lwow were Jewish or Jewish influenced, as well as by Roma(Gypsie, Cygane), Ukrainian, Austro-Hungarian, and whoever else came through. This is a escapist movie that one might expect for the last spring/summer before the War. I would strongly recommend this film for those wishing to see something of the culture destroyed by the Holocaust or by the Soviet annexation of Lviv.
I must also recommend Bedzie Lepiej. This is in Polish, no subtitles, yet; Polish speakers go no further.
The Story, a comedy: The tramps Szcepko and Tonko perform Christmas puppet show for change and share their single Christmas Eve fish with Krysia and her father. Krysia, is orphaned but refuses to go live with her supposedly snobby, upper-crust grandmother. Instead she shares attic lodging with Tonko and Szczepko. Evenually Krysia ends up at her grandmothers house, but soon returns to the attic, where she is on the lam with Tonko and Szczepko. The tramps send Krysia to boarding school and finance this through a faked kidnapping scheme. Krysia finds love with an architect (who has the forgettable song here). In spite of cooperation of the boarding school butler, the whole thing unravels, but with a happy ending.
Kanal (1957)
Dante in Warsaw
That this movie was made is a near miracle, since it squeaked out barely 3 years after Stalin died; and the Polish film industry could even begin to suggest that Poles could struggle against the Germans without Soviet "fraternal" help. It looks likely that it was saved from oblivion by the Silver Palm (1957), at least in Poland. My suspicion that this got past the Party censors as a Dantean allegory about the worker and peasant struggles, with each character and episode exposing some lesson. However, like Ashes and Diamonds, much of the real message is just at the surface: regular Poles struggling for a better future.
The real hidden message of the film is a metaphorical struggle against Soviet oppression. Wajda seems to suggest this by quoting Szczepanski(1944): "... But know this: from our tombstones A victorious new Poland will be born And you will not walk this land You Red Ruler of bestial forces!" (1) Indeed the resolution suggests the Stalinist Inferno is far from over. Those who have tried to bring light to the world suffer a Promethean fate.
What seems remarkable to me is the positive spirit, humor, and love of life that most of the characters display in the face of their passage into the underworld. There is additional irony (humorous to me), for example, that the composer attempts to play a particularly patriotic Chopin, but is then ordered to play "something with feeling:" an inane dance tune. (By the way, the Beckstein piano that the composer tries to protect was made by a company that provided Hitler with crucial early support.)
It is also remarkable that such a dark, almost anti-heroic view of combatants was made only 12 years after the event. It is not so far from the spirit of Ernie Pyle, and just think how long it took to make Band of Brothers.
(1) Interview on www.wajda.pl
In America (2002)
Sisters for Ponette
The reviews, both positive and negative tend to hit the mark (or near), with my 2 main exceptions (or reinforcements) below. I think all agree that Bolger Sisters and the Sheridan Sisters have brilliant outing in this one. Together they could put together a child's eye view of the world on par with '400 Blows' (especially without 'Da' hanging around). I did like 'In America' very much.
1) This movie shows just why New York was such a great place to be a kid (a la '1001 Clowns,' etc). Even the odd dope peddler can be counted on to look after a neighbor's kid.
**Possible SPOILER** (I have to say 'possible' since this is given away by the 20th sentence of the film.)
2) This is an exceptional movie for childhood grieving. That this is a sad movie comes with the turf. At the very heart of the film is how the older daughter comes to terms with the death of her brother. She and her sister go through rounds of grieving in what seems to be an otherwise normal childhood. They express their various phases of bereavement with naive clarity, and startling strength. That a preteen should be the emotional anchor of a family and how, just strikes me ringing straight from life. Since central theme is grief, it absolutely cannot be said that the death of a child is exploited, any more than 'Ponette' can be said to exploit a mother's death.
Korczak (1990)
Childhood in the face death {possible spoiler}
This was Wajda's first movie after the election defeat of the Communists in Poland and deals with many aspects of human relationships in repressive times: kissing up to authority to make things better for others, resistance versus principled non-violence, blackmarketeering, trying to pass a member of an elite group, benefiting from others' bad luck, sacrificing friends for self-interest. The film is almost too burdened by looking at so much.
In spite of this, it really remains focused on how Korczak can provide precious childhood to his orphans in the Jewish Ghetto. He is fiercely protective and uncompromisingly humane in giving his children space to grow and find comfort. Unlike "Life is Beautiful" he acknowledges his children will have to face death (at least of those close to them) and prepares them with the emotional tools to deal with it. He demands a children's hospice ward so that no Ghetto child would die without dignity alone on the street. Any hand-holding in bright light can only be metaphor for the spiritual leadership. Indeed the bedtime tucking rituals, and the occasional giving up his bed to his most troubled charges is the strongest symbol of the childhood comforts he tries to give them.
Wojciech Pszoniak (Korczak) reminds me of Robin Williams as Oliver Sacks in Awakenings. He is so serious about those in his care, while at the same time able to provide them with good humor as needed. He is also a bit of a social misfit.
Like Szpilman, Korczak is so well loved and respected by all Poles (and even some Germans), he seems to have been chosen by them to survive. Korczak's fate mirrors the Pianist in the sense that Szpilman is aloof and his existence becomes more and more isolated as people help him survive. But because Korczak is so engaged, and so devoted to his children, his fate becomes more and more wedded to theirs.
Polanski is definitely more cinematic, but I think Wajda is more humanistic, especially from a script by Holland. In any event, the Poles cinematic treatment Holocaust is for me the most relevant, honest, and moving.
Sekret Enigmy (1979)
Pre-Solidarity TVP docudrama + Hitler po Polsku!
Actually not bad for a very late Soviet era Polish, made for TV-Polonia historical drama. The sub-titles seem a little inadequate at points, so Polish could be a plus. Also several months or years often disappear between scenes, so that folks who were slogging it out escaping from Poland to Romania, reappear in Paris Hotels. It does help to know a bit of WWII Abwehr, Vichy, Bletchley history so that you can pick out Adm. Canaris or have some idea what Churchill is on about (HMS Rawlpindhi, eg). The history is pretty accurate, and actually much more accurate than the Anglo-American Enigma (2001) or U-571 (2000). The depiction of the machine use is a bit dramatized, but no worse that American TV. Considering this is a Warsaw Pact production, it's nearly devoid of pro-Russian spin. Their Paris restaurant does look like a Soviet era east European French restaurant, say in Warsaw. My favorite part has to be the Hitler diatribe in Polish, which has real Mel-Brooksesque humor. (A true victory for Poland, if we can make Hitler speak Polish). The story could actually be a real cliff-hanger considering all the real life near misses, but this is more of a tribute to Rejewski, Zagalski, Rozycki, and Langer.
Le peuple migrateur (2001)
Ornithophile must see.
More gallic charm that science, it is a series of "up close and personal" vignettes of several species of birds, especially geese. It feels like the Tour-de-France for birds. For urban sorts, the goose-eye view of Paris and New York is worth price of admission. It also completely explains the Russian love of swans and the Japanese for cranes. This is a great film for younger folks, with only a half dozen birds meeting unfortunate ends, but completely devoid of graphic violence. These sequences cut immediately to more uplifting scenes. It does show geese entering an East European factory worthy of Terry Gilliam, a duck decoy as spooky as a hockey mask, and sand crabs as predatory as any Hitchcock birds.