Maciej Kozlowski Movies

Director Jerzy Hoffman brings one of Poland's most famous legends to the screen with this tale of a cruel prince determined to hold onto power, and a brave young warrior who longs to marry a beautiful princess. The time was the 9th Century, and various Slavic tribes wandered the land that would later be known as Poland. As opposed to praising a single deity that united them all, each tribe worshipped their own distinct god. Popiel was a cruel prince who, along with his scheming wife, nefariously plotted to find a means of passing control of the land to their sun and heir. Recognizing the crimes that he is ordered to carry out in order to make this transition of power possible, the commander of Popiel's army - a noble soul named Piastun - decides to part ways with the corrupted ruler. But Popiel strikes back at Piastun with such ferocity that the prince's former aid nearly loses his life. Nursed back to health by a young hunter and warrior named Ziemowit Pastowic, Piastun ultimately makes a full recover. Ziemowit has only recently returned to his homeland after years of sailing the sea with Vikings, and now he has fallen for a pretty merchant's daughter named Dziwa. Later, as Ziemowit asks for Dziwa's hand in marriage, he is devastated to learn that her controlling father Wisz is determined to ensure that his daughter will become a high priestess in a local temple. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A lavish historical epic that (on a budget of $8.5 million) was the most expensive Polish film ever at the time of its release, Ogniem I Mieczem/With Fire and Sword is based on a classic Polish novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz concerning political and social turmoil from 1647 to 1649. Cossacks are waiting to strike Poland on the Eastern border that neighbors the Ukraine, the nearby Tartars and Turks are waiting for the opportunity to attack Europe, and the Polish ruling class is busy feuding among themselves. A daring Pole named Jan Skrzetuski (Michal Zebrowski), meanwhile, is vying for the hand of beautiful Helena Kurcewicz (Izabella Scorupco, best known for her role in the James Bond film Goldeneye), against heavy competition from Ukranian Bohun (Alexandr Domogarov), to whom she is already engaged. Helena's aunt and guardian, however, cancels the wedding plans, and an enraged Bohun attempts to kidnap her. One of Jan's associates, Zagloba (Krysztof Kowalewski), foils the plot and whisks her away to the Castle of Bar, but Bohun is not to be denied; he storms the castle, taking Helena and leaving Jan and his men to find her, just as the Cossacks and the Tartars have joined forces to sack the nation. Ogniem I Mieczem/With Fire and Sword was the first in a trilogy of novels by Sienkiewicz, but, ironically, was the last to be filmed by director Jerzy Hoffman. The final book in the series, Colonel Wolodyjowski, was adapted for the screen by Hoffman in 1969, while the second, The Deluge, appeared in 1974. A low-budget Italian version of With Fire and Sword was released in 1961. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, a German businessman in Poland who sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis' rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using flattery and bribes to win military contracts, and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory. By staffing his plant with Jews who've been herded into Krakow's ghetto by Nazi troops, Schindler has a dependable unpaid labor force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant could mean survival for himself and the other Jews working for Schindler. However, in 1942, all of Krakow's Jews are assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), an embittered alcoholic who occasionally shoots prisoners from his balcony. Schindler arranges to continue using Polish Jews in his plant, but, as he sees what is happening to his employees, he begins to develop a conscience. He realizes that his factory (now refitted to manufacture ammunition) is the only thing preventing his staff from being shipped to the death camps. Soon Schindler demands more workers and starts bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps. By the time Germany falls to the allies, Schindler has lost his entire fortune -- and saved 1,100 people from likely death. Schindler's List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture and a long-coveted Best Director for Spielberg, and it quickly gained praise as one of the finest American movies about the Holocaust. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The censor in this film is accustomed to watching characters of the films he sees speak only the lines he has permitted them to speak. He generally knows within a word exactly what he will hear. It's a boring job, but he appreciates the cat-and-mouse game of trying to suppress anything forbidden in the face of steady efforts to sneak something past him. However, it has all become old hat to him. One day at the Liberty Cinema, a commercial movie theater near his offices, the characters on the movie screen start speaking out of character and refuse to speak the lines written for them. This provokes a furor, and he is called in to attempt to deal with the situation -- to no avail. Eventually he relates the obduracy of the characters to that of those in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, but his efforts to control the situation with that understanding backfire when characters from one film start showing up in the other one. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This visually opulent drama is based on an 18th century novel by James Hogg. A young man looks back on his life as he examines his divided soul and the push-and-pull between good and evil, purity and hypocrisy, and other concerns voiced in the writings of philosophers as disparate as de Sade and Goethe. The arguments are not always easy to follow and presuppose that the audience has a certain familiarity with the concepts and their meaning. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide