Kazimierz Kaczor Movies

This Polish satire makes fun of Andrzej Wajda's films Man of Marble and Man of Iron while also taking sharp pokes at Polish post-Solidarity government reforms. Everyone gets it in this film, the Polish government, political activists, and even the church. It is set in 1982 Warsaw where Anna, a spirited film school graduate is trying to make a film about censorship. Unfortunately she finds herself censored by the police who arrest her on beefed-up charges. The films main protagonist, Marek is also arrested. Unlike other film heroes, Marek has the fortitude of lime Jello. Anna is exiled to France until 1989. When she returns she is recruited to make a documentary for Polish TV. She begins looking to see what happened to poor Marek. She interviews many oily officials. Marek's role in it all is shown in flashback. He is seen meeting secretly with people, going to prison, and becoming romantically involved with Marie, another activist. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Within this culturally-centered tale of a Polish star-gazer obsessed with finding a new planet on the outskirts of the universe, lie allusions to the socio-political situation in Poland in the early 1980s that only a Pole at the time might fully understand. The story evolves around a tailor who is hospitalized for kidney problems and during a brief coma becomes convinced he was somehow joined to the distant stars. After he emerges from the hospital he talks the villagers into helping him build a major telescope, and his enthusiasm is contagious. For some reason, no one questions the fact that he has no training and no degree in astronomy -- until he starts getting a little static from the town elders when the Soviet Union does not like anyone outside of their space program taking unauthorized photos with a telescope (the first Sputnik was just sent up). The rude awakening will come when the tailor heads off to his first major astronomy conference, facing professionals for the first time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This drama by Jerzy Trojan concerns Janek (Jan Englert), an artist, who has parked himself on a street corner at a busy intersection in the city. He is supposed to meet his girlfriend there, but time goes by and then goes by some more, and she does not show up. While he occupies the passing day with vivid fantasies as to what will happen to her when she finally does come, flashbacks also show how he has treated her in the past. This lamentable past and imperfect future reveal just what kind of a person Janek really is. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The first of Polish director Andrzej Wajda's two "Solidarity" films, Man of Marble (originally Czlowiek z Marmuru) concerns bricklayer Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwilowicz). Lauded as a national hero in the 1950s due to his skills at his trade, Birkut has inexplicably fallen into obscurity. In making a film of the bricklayer's life, documentary director Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda) discovers that the bricklayer used his sudden fame to become involved in labor politics -- whereupon the repressive government did its best to wipe out all traces of his accomplishments. This climactic revelation was, ironically, excised by the Polish censors when Man of Marble was first released. Director Wajda followed this film with Man of Iron, which traced the further political exploits of director Agnieszka and her husband, the son of the unfortunate bricklayer -- also played by Jerzy Radziwilowicz. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi