Tomasz Zaliwski Movies

Kaj (Steen Svare) is a pleasant, shy, somewhat overweight Danish bachelor who runs an outdoor hot-dog stand. A quartet of his friends think it would be great fun to take him on a boat excursion to the cheap thrills of Swinoujscie, Poland, where the booze and the women are cheap (but you stand the chance of having your wallet stolen). Its his fortieth birthday, and as far as any of them know, he's still a virgin, or nearly so. While the lads a whooping it up in a bar (and incidentally getting into all sorts of trouble), Kaj goes to the house of a nice family in the mistaken belief that he's headed for a whorehouse. Instead, he's treated to a nice meal and it's assumed that he's there to marry the family's similarly chubby daughter (Dorota Pomkykala). Indeed, as he stays at the family home overnight, they do become friends. The next day, Kaj bails his friends out of jail and they head back to Denmark, Kaj with a twinkle in his eye. Maybe he'll come back and marry that girl after all. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Road is a series of vignettes that set a reflective mood, but are not related in their content, only through their narrator. In one scene, an elderly man remembers how as a young man he stole some clothes from a woman who was bathing in the river with other women -- and how she came to get them back, leading to a pleasant time among the summer grasses for the two of them. In another scene, the same old man rails against the indifference of local officials to regulating the heavy traffic on the nearby road -- farmers and their slow-moving hay carts cannot use the road in early morning or late afternoon because of the traffic -- and the hero gets hurt trying to do just that. Life in the country, it seems, runs from hot to cold, just like in the city. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

A ruminative, understated drama on the nature of overwork versus an "unachieving" life away from the city, Pelnia examines the experience of one man. After leaving his high-pressured existence as a successful architect, the newly resolved dropout goes to live in a small community of cabins and summer homes in a lake-filled region north of Warsaw. His interactions with the villagers, including a drunkard and other eccentrics, provide an informative background for what happens next. The ex-architect's wife is a professional singer who has not abandoned the city or her life -- and she soon arrives to spend some time with her very changed husband. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Polish filmmaker Czesaw Petelski, who'd previously helmed the two-part historical epic Casimir the Great, sets his sights on the World War II years in Birthday. Piotr Lysak plays a young Pole who celebrates his 23rd birthday in 1944. It is at once an occasion for both exultation and anguish: Lysak's birthday coincides with the abortive Warsaw Uprising. As in his previous work, Petelski is able to place a tumultuous historical event within an intensely personal perspective. On this occasion, he manages to get it done within the relatively short timespan of 98 minutes (at least in the English-language version, which doesn't appear to be radically shortened). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After Poland won freedom from of its long overlordship by Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, it took a further four years for its National Assembly to elect Gabriel Narutowicz as its first president. Narutowicz was a professor who until his election had been living in Switzerland. Those were chaotic times, and shortly after his election, he was assassinated by right-wing fanatics. This epic Polish film chronicles the circumstances of Narutowicz's election and assassination. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi