Krzysztof Pieczynski Movies
Amoral men who traffic in human beings pick the wrong girl to exploit when they discover her best friend is an fighting machine bent on revenge in this thriller. Billy Ray Lancing (Steven Seagal) is a former American intelligence agent who has retired to seek peace of mind by living alone with nature. Lancing, however, has developed a close relationship through the mail with Irena (Ida Nowakowska), an orphaned teenager living in Poland; they correspond frequently, and Lancing uses his letters to help teach her how to read code. When Irena's letters stop arriving, and Lancing receives a terse message saying she won't be contacting him again, he becomes suspicious and travels to Poland. There, Lancing makes the shocking discovery that the charitable organization for orphaned children Lancing had been helping to support is actually a front for a worldwide network of sexual slavery. Working with Polish law enforcement, Lancing sets out to find Irena and her fellow orphans before it's too late, using his years of experience to ferret out the men responsible and his talent for codes to stay in touch with Irena. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steven Seagal
Just as the university research team is about to prove that their new technique will permit water to be used as a fuel, their laboratory is sabotaged and the lab manager is killed. Eddie Kasalivich (Keanu Reeves) stumbles onto the scene and manages not only to witness the sabotage, but to escape from it. When he tries to talk about it to authorities, he discovers that they think he and the other project survivors committed the crime. In reality, a group of energy companies have conspired with interested parties in the government to completely erase all notion of the existence of a way to use water as fuel. The project sponsor (Morgan Freeman) wants Eddie to turn himself in, but before he can do that, he must find enough evidence to clear himself and his friends. But in order to succeed, Eddie must avoid assassination attempts by the real perpetrators. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, (more)
- 1996
Off-beat might be too week an adjective to describe this strange, metaphorical and magical fairy tale from Polish filmmaker Jakub Kolski. Interesting conversations as to the exact meaning of the symbolic drama are sure to result. The tale is divided into two parts. The first centers on Marczyk, an aged farmer and his encounter with itinerant fiddler Lunda whose mad, capricious melodies are inspired by jagged shards of broken crockery. Marczyk knows he is to die soon, but before he does, he tricks the cruelly beautiful Angel of Death into allowing him to find a mate for the "monster" he conceals at the bottom of a well. His creature, Morka, is actually a three eyed, freak with two noses and two mouths. Still, Marczyk is able to die in peace for Janka, a lady dwarf, has come and fallen in love with Morka and their romance provides the story's second half. Trouble brews though when Janka suddenly begins growing to normal stature. Fearful that she will stop loving him, poor Morka joins a traveling side show. But fortunately, that is not the end of the tale. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1996
Set in communist Poland in 1953, this is a drama about loyalty and betrayal. Anna (Magdalena Cielecka) is a Catholic nun and schoolteacher who has made the mistake of advising her students to attend Mass rather than go to an important Communist Party rally. She is arrested and detained, but is released on the condition that she will get the dirt on a dissident priest (Oligerd Lukaszwicz). Anna is a young woman, and has had a crush on that same priest since she was a girl. As she attempts to carry out her nefarious assignment, her unresolved sexual feelings come to the fore, adding to her inner torment. When her duplicitous friendship with him results in confidences, her twin crises of conscience and faith come to their peak. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1995
Set in 1909 after Russia invaded Poland, this historical thriller recounts the courageous actions of a Polish freedom fighter who becomes a double agent for his captors. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boguslaw Linda, Edyta Olszowka, (more)
- 1986
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
- Starring:
- Krzysztof Pieczynski, Malgorzata Pieczynska, (more)
- 1985
A backdrop of Polish politics is an indirect participant in this measured look at a young writer's obsession with his "idol." In the difficult 1950s, a prominent (fictitious) Polish writer, Piotr Korton, was forced into exile in West Germany in order to continue living and writing without danger of incarceration. After he dies, another young Polish writer gets the idea to do an essay on the man's life and work. Times are better in Poland and there is some leeway in writing about topics that were once censored. Once the young writer has embarked on his project, he develops such a rapport with the life and personality of Korton that his own identity is dangerously close to dissolution. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Krzysztof Pieczynski, Jerzy Kamas, (more)
- 1983
In an exaggerated, overacted portrayal of the lower classes being held down by a sometimes corruptible bureaucracy, an underprivileged woman on the verge of living on the streets gets a job in a home for seniors, where she begins her first tentative relationship with an orderly. When the orderly is denied an apartment after a five-year wait for housing, the woman approaches a wealthy invalid in the seniors home for a little help for her friend. Like many another wealthy senior, the man refuses to do what she wants -- with rather tragic results to himself, and ultimately to the woman as well. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dorota Stalinska, Stanislaw Igar, (more)
- 1981
Designed by a shameless official as an anti-capitalist propaganda crusade, a three-day marathon race is sabotaged by a dissident who steals the running shoe of the hand-picked favorite. Budny and Stolar are two particular contestants who are highlighted here. Budny is a man with a hidden agenda; his father is held prisoner by the militia and Budny wishes to run the race in order to get close enough to the president -- who will present the awards to the winners -- to make a plea for his father's release. Conversely, Stolar is a self-serving loser who finagles his entry into the race and then turns his lecherous attention to a young woman working for the Party. A vicious indictment of Polish Communist Party officials of the Stalinist era, this symbolic film remained on the shelf for six years before being officially released to appear at the Sydney Film Festival in 1987. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tadeusz Bradecki, Jaroslaw Kopaczewski, (more)
