Michal Bajor Movies

This door-slamming bedroom farce from director Slawomir Krynski stars Jan Frycz as Filip Morawsk, a well-to-do neurosurgeon who temporarily casts his marriage aside to spend an illicit weekend with a sex goddess nurse named Dominica (Malgorzata Buczkowska). Of course, his wife doesn't realize this, but as luck (or fate) would have it, she just happens to be staying at the same hotel for work reasons. No matter: Filip has learned to contend with any obstacles no matter how daunting. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Ewa (Dorota Stalinska) was once a big-name actress. Now she is a drunk, washed-up has-been, living in a very ordinary apartment. She doesn't know how to sincerely express any concern for anyone but herself, and her dreams of returning to prominence as a singer or making a theatrical comeback are undermined by her unpleasant personality. Despite that, she has moments of warmth and tenderness which enable one occasionally to see what her former appeal must have been based on. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The labyrinthine plot deals with a group of space researchers who left the Earth to find freedom. Their spaceship crashes and they land on the dark side of the Moon. They all die except one and leave a lot of children who eventually turn to shamanism and fire worship. They call the last survivor the Old Man and simultaneously loathe and revere him. Finally, the Old Man retreats to the mountains, puts his video diary into a small rocket and sends it to Earth. The rocket reaches its destination and the notes fall into the hands of another group of researchers. One of them, Marek, journeys to the Old Man's planet and lands in the mountains. When he emerges from the hills, the aboriginal inhabitants mistake him for the long-awaited reincarnation of the Old Man and look to him to deliver them from the dreaded sherns -- strange, winged mutants. The making of this film in 1978 was brutally interrupted by the Polish Ministry of Culture. When about 80% of the shooting was complete, they ordered the filmmakers to destroy all related materials. This decision caused director Andrzej Zulawski to leave his homeland for France, where he spent the next ten years. During the democratization of the Polish political regime in 1986-1987, Zulawski returned to the country to finish the picture. Having lost the sets, costumes, actors, and momentum, the director chose to complete the film from the spared footage, adding a voiceover for the missing episodes and utilizing other actors to dub the original actors who were no longer available. Even in this mutilated form, the film appears as a highly ambitious, if overwrought, sci-fi epic that draws upon philosophical concepts rather than special effects. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

A mood of hopelessness subtly pervades this simple story about an equally subtle injustice, the kind that can so easily be attributed to the "system" instead of any single human being. Jozef (Mariusz Dmochowski) is a 60-year old invalid, disabled because of the nature of his work at a factory, who travels to his former steel plant to join in the celebration of its 30th anniversary. Jozef expects to receive an award for his years of service, but when the names of the recipients are read, he is not among them. The oversight occasions an investigation which seems to show that since Jozef did not accept a desk job at the plant after his disability, he is undeserving. Meanwhile, his son and daughter-in-law, who is nine months pregnant with a second child, have just received an eviction notice. The family cannot stay in the apartment belonging to the father because the son left the steel mill and got another job, disqualifying his apartment permit. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this amusing story, the "applause-getter" is a producer who manages to pack the house for a show featuring a senile former star by covertly letting the public know that the old woman may actually die on stage in her next performance. His ploy sells out every show, but the aged actress believes people are simply coming to see her on stage. Mixed in with this storyline are entertaining backstage segments in which the producer has to fend off critics and competitors alike, and in the end, even he could not predict the outcome of his subterfuge. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

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, Rovi