Ida is a 2013 Polish drama film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. It was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival where it won the FIPRESCI Special Presentations award. The film has been selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards. It is also nominated for People’s Choice Award for Best European Film at 27th European Film Awards.
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After a five-year hiatus from filmmaking, Piotr Szulkin returned in 1990 with “Femina”, based on a novel by Krystyna Kofta and inspired by Luis Bunuel.
The main character is Bogna, a thirty year old woman lost in her surrounding reality and unhappy in her private life. After her husband departs for a foreign scholarship, Bogna learns that her mother died. The trip to her hometown for the funeral becomes a voyage in time, during which she relives the memories of her idyllic childhood.
As beautifully mounted as any of Szulkin’s films, it’s full of delirious wide-angle imagery (at times recalling the films of Terry Gilliam and Wojciech Has). Unavailable on DVD even in Poland, this is a most unfairly neglected work by Szulkin.Read More »
Jerzy is a writer and a chronic alcoholic. We meet him at the point when he believes that he can beat his addiction. Him and her in bed. Somebody says “I love you”. It seems that there is a reason and someone to live for… But when once she’s gone and he’s alone in a taxi, Jerzy can’t stop himself any longer. He has a quick one at The Mighty Angel and then goes to an all-night shop and starts drinking heavily. And then foam, convulsions, vomiting. Jerzy ends up in intensive care. We meet the hospital staff and other alcoholics in the isolated ward. Part of the treatment is reading previously written stories from the times when the patients were drinking. There’s an array of characters here: a lorry driver, a director, a pharmacist, some dossers too, a student and a policeman… there are no exceptions because anyone can be trapped in addiction. There are many amusing and authentic life stories (who has never laughed at a drunkard?) but there are also some terrifying ones… Read More »
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A young Polish woman (Hendrickx) on the run from a life as a prostitute winds up in a small town in Northern Holland. When a kindly farmer (Spijkers) finds her bruised and battered he gives her a roof over her head. Their relationship blossoms but is threatened by imminent foreclosure on the farm and by the girl’s past catching up with her. Stylish and intriguing.
This movie is a real character movie. Almost the entire movie focuses purely on just the two main characters. The characters don’t explain anything to each other about how and what. They just accept things as they are and don’t look back, even though the both of them, as implied, had issues in the past. They are definitely not at love at first but they also most certainly don’t hate each other. They slowly and steadily grow- and open up toward each other and also learn from each other, in many different ways. It doesn’t make this movie ‘just’ another unusual love-story but something that goes deeper and therefor also gets more effectively shown on the screen.Read More »
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A group of space researchers leaves earth to find freedom. Their spaceship crashes on the dark side of the moon. Shortly afterwards, all are dead save for the children and one adult. They create their own society, characterized by shamanism and the worship of fire. The last adult survivor is called the Old Man, who is both worshipped and loathed. The Old Man leaves the group of children for the mountains and sends his video diary in a rocket back to Earth. A space researcher named Marek (Andrzej Seweryn) receives the video diary and travels to the moon. When he arrives he is welcomed by the group of children as the messiah, seeing him as the reincarnation of the Old Man.Read More »
In 1944, during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis, Polish Lieutenant Zadra and his resistance fighters use Warsaw’s sewer system to escape the German encirclement.Read More »
Set in pre- World War II era. A young man is on a strange train to see his dying father in a sanatorium. But the place is going to ruin and recalls a lot of memories from the past. He is beset by soldiers from the past, colonial black mercenaries, girls from his early life, and his parents. It is an interior adventure, with unusual atmospheric flair and extraordinary sets.Read More »
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In a murky, sometimes confusing tale about a future dystopia in which people are waiting — and waiting — for a rescue ship called the Ark, there are several good one-liners, but they are outnumbered by the puzzling riddles and symbolism that permeate the story. The flotsam and jetsam of humanity are huddled together in an underground labyrinth after civilization as we know it has been obliterated by the Bomb. The survivors are protected by a dome which a repairman notes is bound to crack before the Ark arrives because it was constructed under a one-year plan. The hero of the film searches for the origins of the myth about the Ark and along the way falls in love with a prostitute. It seems the world’s oldest profession has also survived the nuclear holocaust.Read More »
