mpadjasek

I decided to watch "Wezwanie" (The Summons) partly because the main role in this film was played by the recently deceased outstanding actress Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak. However, I was a bit surprised that this modest film turned out to be much better than I expected. It tells the true story of a wrongly accused emergency doctor, which happened in Warsaw in 1983. She was accused of assaulting and stealing the wallet of a drunk patient. The allegations were completely false and motivated by the authorities' hate campaign against emergency workers. I didn't know this story, and that's why it was doubly interesting to me. The film is both an indictment of the authoritarian state and a parable with something Kafkaesque in it. It also shows the atmosphere of the 1980s when Poles fought for democracy and that it was worth fighting for a better tomorrow because today we live in a completely different country. An additional attraction for me was that I could see what some of the actors who are popular today looked like 30 years ago. The biggest surprise for me was that this story is universal and still relevant today. Today, populist right-wing movements also use hate campaigns to make individual people and entire social groups look bad to society. In today's Poland, this is primarily the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) with its hate campaign against immigrants, Germans, homosexuals, doctors, and judges. Although anti-communist rhetoric is used, the methods used are straight from an authoritarian system, and similar methods of operation can probably also be found in countries other than Poland. So, "Wezwanie" was an interesting and valuable film for me in many ways.

I came across this film by accident on YouTube and watched it because of Selma Lagerlof's name. I'm not an expert on Scandinavian literature, but I've heard about this writer mainly in the context of her most popular novel, "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils". I liked the film "Das Madchen vom Moorhof", although I haven't read the novel on which it was based. The acting and the realities of everyday life were decent in my opinion, which allowed me to concentrate on the story itself. The film was another look at the rural, class-stratified community of the late 19th century with its Christian-based morality. I believe the characters were carefully thought out and were not static, which revealed the hand of a great writer. It was particularly interesting for me that my Polish grandparents still attended schools in the Russian Empire, and I could compare the content of the film to the memories of my grandparents, because despite the different geographical location, it was a similar era and a similar mentality. Comparisons also came to mind with the novels of Thomas Hardy and the Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg, who also described rural communities and whom I enjoyed reading in my youth. Of course, my interest in film was greater because I come from a rural background too. According to Selma Lagerlof, it was a simple (or simplistic) world based on simple moral principles, but today most of us cannot tell how much of this simplicity was real and how much was the ideology of the ruling classes. I have the impression that my grandfather, who was just a village carpenter, was more skeptical and more cautious in his judgments about what was right and what was wrong. Despite everything, overall, I found the film to be an engaging and worthwhile period piece, and enjoyed watching it.

I watched the film "Subuk" with great interest, especially since I knew little about the problems associated with raising autistic children. While the film was quite conventional in its artistic aspect, it's been a long time since I saw a work that made me reflect so much. First of all, I saw that often chance can completely change our lives so that they can take completely different paths. The main character, Marysia (Malgorzata Gorol), was not a traditional, conservative woman who only thinks about her husband and children, but rather a modern girl with her own ambitions. However, a pure coincidence turned her life into a series of sacrifices and almost deprived her of privacy. Although I am not a supporter of countries with bloated social welfare, I think that as a society we should make sure that such people are never left without help. Secondly, I understood that autistic people may deviate from accepted norms, but they also have their own world and their own talents, and it is necessary to communicate with them. I was very moved by the fate of Marysia from the film, and I strongly sided with her in her fight against life's adversities. I also liked the playing of Malgorzata Gorol and Andrzej Seweryn. So, to sum up, I think that "Subuk" is an engaging film that has educational value but at the same time gives room for independent reflection.