Maria Pakulnis Movies

Just about every element from classic noir thrillers can be found in this crime thriller, from an eerie encounter on a train, to its villainous hero (or heroic villain). Double-crossed by his crime boss during his trial, Malik (Boguslaw Linda) manages to escape from the courtroom during his trial. Now on the run, he is pursued by the cop who caught him at the beginning. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Members of an artist community opt for decadence as they anticipate the end of the world as they know it. As the storm clouds of war gather over Europe, a famous painter (Jan Nowicki) and his Bohemian friends revel in sex, drugs, and alcohol. The young artist Karol (Maciej Robakiewicz) begins his own series of paintings in between his love affairs. With the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, the party is over, and the idyllic world of creativity gives way to the horrors of war. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

This philosophical treatise is visually evocative and probes deeply into dark periods of Polish history and somber aspects of the human psyche, and dominated by symbolism and long monologues. The plot involves a series of encounters between Poles who were once interned in a concentration camp by Lake Constance on the German-Swiss border. One such survivor of those days goes back for a visit and flashbacks illuminate his past and that period in history. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In a poetic evocation of a land that produced creative talents like those of Marc Chagall, Lithuanian-born director Tadeusz Konwicki looks at his native country through a story based on a novel by fellow Lithuanian Czeslaw Milosz. The main protagonist -- aside from the haunting landscape and forests -- is young Tommy (Maciej Mazurkiewicz) who observes his valley beginning to deteriorate as social unrest grows in the 1920s. Tommy's fantasy life brings him in touch with "evil" forces and a doomed love affair, but the reality is that he lives on a wealthy estate near the Polish border and even though the war has ended, animosity has not. As dissention and antagonism grow, the shadows of a future war are already growing darker in the once-innocent valley. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide