Jan Nowicki Movies

A dance piece by composer Bela Bartok is brought to the screen in this short ballet feature. A beautiful young woman (Yvette Bozsik) runs afoul of a masher (Jan Nowicki) and, while trying to escape his lewd attentions, is kidnapped by evildoers. The abductors force the woman to work as a streetwalker, but when things seem darkest, she is befriended by a mysterious Asian gentleman (Yu Jung Zhang), who helps her escape to freedom. Yvette Bozsik, who dances the leading role, also served as choreographer for this film, which was produced for Hungarian television. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Veteran Hungarian director Marta Meszaros has added a sexual subtext to her traditional feminist-oriented themes in this erotically charged drama about Russian women working as prostitutes in Poland. Olga Drozdowa stars as Natasha, a Russian schoolteacher and mother who decides to tag along when her best friend Vera (Ewa Telega) takes a vacation in Warsaw which would enable them to sell goods on the black market. When Natashia and Vera arrive in Warsaw, things quickly take a turn for the worst -- they make very little money, Vera is killed, and the floating hotel where Natasha was staying literally drifts away. A local ne'er-do-well named Janek (Olaf Lubashenko) offers to "help" Natasha, but his idea of assistance is to force Natasha into a career as a high-priced prostitute for upscale pimp Mr. Robert (Jan Nowicki), who sells her services to a ready market of foreign clients. Cory Szczescie/Daughters Of Luck combines socio-political commentary about the notions of exploitation inherent in both prostitution and the relationship between Russia and Poland with steamy soft-core sex sequences featuring the beautiful Olga Drozdowa. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Edith Stein was a German-Jewish intellectual who in the late-'30s created considerable controversy and broke her mother's heart when she converted to Catholicism and then joined one of the Church's most rigorous monastic orders, the Carmelite Nuns. This European biopic tells her story, a tale that ended tragically when Stein, who finally made it through the long, painful novitiate process and found true peace, was brutally yanked from the convent by Nazi soldiers and sent to Auschweitz where she died. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This dark teen drama takes place during the climate of "thawing" just before many of the socialist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed. In the story, two Hungarian boys and one girl get a serious case of wanderlust, and long to see the sea. The nearest place they can do this is in Poland, which at the time was in considerable turmoil. Though they are shocked at the extent of the local repression there, they don't take it too seriously. When the boys attempt to stow away on a boat headed for Sweden, however, they are forced to. The rest of the film explores their harrowing experiences in prison, and the girl's attempts to get them released. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This pseudo-documentary chronicles, in a high-flown anthropological manner, the preliminary preparations men and women in Denmark make before they make love, and the things they do afterwards. Subjects are shown shaving, putting on make-up, dressing carefully, etc., and then getting together and caressing one another. The sex act itself is omitted. Then the subjects are shown smoking, deciding to put on their clothes and then deciding not to (for another bout of lovemaking). All is presented in a dry, non-emotional style. Adding to the documentary flavor of this experimental film (part of a series by the director) is footage from the Trobriand Islands, an hommage to anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski's groundbreaking work earlier in the century. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

When the director Marta Meszaros made her 1982 autobiographical feature Diary for My Children about her and her Hungarian family's sufferings in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, it made Hungary's authorities so nervous that they withheld it from distribution for two years. After seeing that it caused no problems for them, they okayed this movie, which is a sequel featuring the same actors in the same roles. The first movie concentrated on the experiences Juli (her name in the film) has under the Stalin regime and her eventual return in 1949 to Hungary following the imprisonment of her sculptor father and the death of her mother. In this movie, the girl has been having a difficult time with her foster mother, and at eighteen is trying to find some way to expand her horizons. She also wants to see her father, who she believes is still in a Soviet prison. Juli receives a scholarship to study film in Moscow, which is just what she was looking for. There, she encounters Janos, a man who resembles her father and she becomes friends with him, but he is later rounded up and imprisoned for political reasons. Meanwhile, Juli has been commuting between her Hungarian home and Moscow, studying for her film degree and making her first film, a documentary. When Stalin dies, there is a political thaw and Janos is released from prison, at the same time she discovers that her father died in prison in 1944, but his name and reputation had been rehabilitated (that is, they were no longer in official disfavor). When her movie is finally made and released (amid criticism that it is "brutally" honest), she is about to receive her degree in Moscow when she learns of an uprising at home. She wants to return, but the borders have been sealed. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Zygfryd (Gustaw Holoubek) is a circus acrobat who lives with the owner Waldo (Jan Nowicki) and his wife Maria (Maria Pakulnis) in this tragic drama. The young acrobat is attracted to the beautiful Maria, who performs as a bareback rider in her own act. Zygfryd's exciting act is witnessed by wealthy recluse Stefan Drawicz (Tomasz Hudziec), who befriends the young performer, and Stefan changes his friend's life by introducing him to cultural events and opening his mind. Although grateful for the experience, Zygfryd's newly acquired appreciation of life leaves him depressed over his banal existence as a circus performer. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This simple (though visually flawed) story of human tragedy is set around 1900 in Hungary and involves the life of a young farmhand. Before landowner Jozef Banffy (Jan Nowicki) kills himself, he leaves his holdings to a young peasant, Imre Tanyir (Peter Andorai) instead of his own family. Much later, Imre joins up with others who want to educate the peasant class and make them more aware of their rights -- a dangerous activity that quickly puts Imre at odds with the state and does not bode well for his future on the land. Someone has already been killed in a demonstration on the farm, and it is clear that the military is not above torturing the dissidents. Without a doubt, Imre is heading for trouble.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

"The Inspector General" is a satirical comedy of errors penned by Nikolay Gogol in the 19th century and interpreted here by director Marta Meszaros for the cinema. Jan Nowicki stars as the corrupt mayor of a small town who learns that the formidable inspector general is going to show up incognito, of course, to judge the town's governing body. When an unsuspecting stranger is mistaken for the V.I.P., the mayor and his cohorts fall over backwards to offer him every pleasure under the sun, including the mayor's wife and daughter. Director Meszaros' interpretation has excellent acting and good black-and-white photography, but the comedy itself needs more emphasis to capture the hearts of most viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Diary for My Children is set in Hungary during the turbulent years between 1943 and 1956. Jan Nowicki plays a dual role as the factory-worker friend of revolutionary journalist Anna Polony, and as the political-prisoner father of teen-aged heroine Zsusza Czinkoczi. It is Czinkoczi's involvement with both of the men played by Nowicki, which bridges the film's time-frame. Writer/director Marta Meszaros based the events of Diary for My Children on her own wartime experiences (her father was a Communist artist who died under mysterious circumstances during a Stalinist purge). The film was originally released in Hungary as Napló gyermekeimnek; it was the recipient of a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1905 a partitioned Poland was striving for independence from the Russians, Germans, and Austrians, and terrorist, guerrilla squads conducted selective assassinations to further the nationalist cause. A young man in one of these groups, hardly a killer by instinct or inclination, murders a Russian spy and is brought to police headquarters for questioning. When he is suddenly released after a session with a duplicitous judge, he goes back to his underground organization to report on the judge's conduct. Instead of acting on his information, the group sends him out to kill a Polish writer who they say has sold out to the Russians. The young man tracks the writer all the way to Italy, after observing his court trial in Cracow and being pretty much convinced that the writer was innocent of the charges brought against him. When faced with the moment of truth when he must kill the writer, he cannot do it. Once again, he has to return to his organization and bring them information that they will not want to hear. This time, however, his disobedience to their orders weighs heavily against him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

When a Polish fishing vessel sets out for a long-distance run to the Canary Islands, a crab gets caught in the nets as they are reeled in -- a bad omen for the coming voyage. Sure enough, once at the Islands, the sailors are told they have to stay at sea for a few months longer -- and each sailor has his own reaction to that unhappy news. One fisherman in particular has been thinking of his wife Joanna and her insistence that he give up his sea-faring life and find a job on solid land, near home. He weighs the desires of Joanna and the bad omen of the crab, against the profession he inherited from his father before him and is unable to work out a decision. Once he does reach home port, Joanna is there with an ultimatum, and the young fisherman must finally choose whether or not to break with the past. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide