Ewa Dalkowska Movies

Polish director Urszula Urbaniak created this gentle character study about two friends living in a lonely train station in Aniolowo. Maria (Karolina Dryzner) has little to do as a train watcher, since few trains venture out to that remote region of the country, that is, until her best friend Krystyna (Ewa Lorska) returns from her wanderings. After an ill-fated double date, the pair's friendship is tested. Torowisko was screened at the 1999 Montreal Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Re-released in 1985 after being censored by the advent of martial law in 1981, this unrelentingly grim tale about a woman's life inside and outside a Polish prison weighs in on the side of heavy-duty misfortune. The police come for the pregnant Klara (Ewa Blaszczyk) on her wedding day, arrest her for embezzling funds, and throw her in prison. Then Klara's newborn daughter is taken away from her after her birth and sent to an orphanage. After more tragedies, Klara's sentence is commuted to 25 years instead of life, and within 12 years she is released on parole but walks out into a country plagued by political turmoil. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Suspenseful for most of its length, though a letdown at the end, this psychic thriller is about four very different people who are drawn to one particular place in the town of Sopot, a resort on the Baltic Sea. The time is 1933, and it so happens that 50 years earlier, a foul murder was committed here. Involved in that offense were four people who are dead-ringers for the four now gathering in Sopot. The modern versions of the four dead people are a police commissioner, a schoolteacher, a hunchback, and someone who just happens to be visiting from Berlin. As the police commissioner begins to gather evidence, he comes to the conclusion that this murder might just be a cyclical occurrence. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The Polish Year of the Quiet Sun is set in the years following World War II. In a small Polish town, a United Nations war-crimes investigation is taking place. While the courtroom battle rages on, American soldier Scott Wilson takes advantage of a few precious r-and-r opportunities. He falls in love with Maja Komorowska, a war widow. Despite obvious political and ideological differences, the romance flourishes--at least until it's time for the Americans to pack up and leave. More cerebral than carnal, Year of the Quiet Sun was originally release in Poland as Rok Spokojnego Slonca. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Talented Polish director Agnieszka Holland who would be better known in later years because of her films like Europa, Europa (1991) or some of her American works like Washington Square (1997), hits the mark early and again with this ostensible story about provincial actors in Poland. In reality, the comedy-drama can be read as a commentary on the contemporary Polish scene in politics and society. The story begins as a savvy director arrives in a small town to put on a stage play. His leading man is filled with insecurities and goes beyond the confines of his lead role to expand his part, restore his cut lines, and generally outdo himself while taking on some of everyone else's job, including the director's. No one wants to lose him because of his drawing power, and the director is caught in a bind. At the same time, the lead actor's wife is slowly losing her chances at success, being relegated to a much lesser position in the troupe. This fine comedy won the Fipresci award at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this up-and-down comedy, the heroine Karla (Ewa Dalkowska) wants to be free of her dysfunctional family and the only way to do it is to get married and move out. She lives in a small village, so she sets her sights on an eligible bachelor from a remote mountain area, a place where she will be safe from her wacky family. Her father is consumed with, and consumes, rabbits -- life has nothing else to offer him. Her mother's mission seems to be to know everything that Karla's older sister is doing, and the older sister really wants nothing more than to watch television and eat, preferably at the same time. Karla's plan works and she is soon married, pregnant, and far away from her family -- then tragedy strikes. Her husband dies of a heart attack and is no sooner buried than Karla's family is back with her again. Once more, Karla needs to escape and so she marries the town organist -- a move that invites problems she could not have foreseen. The organist is caught in a dilemma of choosing his musical arts over business, or business over art -- and Karla's life with him is not exactly as she had imagined. Somehow, she must resolve her own situation once and for all. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Jerzy Michalowski is a journalist who has been licensed by the Polish State to travel abroad. He researches stories and at the same time represents the country in journalistic circles. When, on a foreign broadcast, he displays a much too-thorough knowledge of the actual state of affairs inside Poland, the authorities decide to punish him by inexorably withdrawing his privileges one by one, without any explanation. Each reduction in privileges brings this once-proud man's estate lower, and the intervals between them are great enough for him to think that his punishment has reached it's culmination...until the next. This unusual and politically significant Polish film follows director Andrzej Wajda's Men of Marble in indicting abuses of power by the state, and was made shortly before the military took control of the government. Wajda says "I worked on this film in a blind rage..." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide