Emil Karewicz Movies

This film covers the five war-torn years between 1914 and 1919, unfortunately at the rate of about forty-five minutes per year, with ponderous historical detail, large crowd scenes, and hundreds of period costumes. As the legends of Polish history during this time share their moments with Lloyd George, Lenin, Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson, the war crunches to an inevitable close against a backdrop of parliamentary debates, battle scenes, and secret meetings. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The tertiary and final installment in director Tadeusz Chmielewski's wacky, farcical series on the adventures of a hapless Polish soldier during World War II, How I Unleashed World War II, Vol. 2 sees Private Franek Dolas assuming female drag as a nurse and hiding out aboard a medical boat en route to Italy. Discovered and apprehended by the Nazi forces, Dolas is misidentified as a German soldier and shuttled off to the front lines, then manages to make it back to Poland - for a hero's welcome. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The Nazis and some Polish rebels are stationed at different outpost in the Arctic during World War II. When a Pole tries to bring in a captured German officer, the two are forgotten by the sudden end of the war. Given up for dead, the two combine forces to struggle against the bitter cold and make it back to safety. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Also known as Knights of the Teutonic Order, this historic epic is set in 15th-century Poland, during the time of the Teutonic invasion. Danusia (Grazyna Staniszewska), daughter of warrior Jurandt (Andrzej Szalawski), is in love with firebrand Zbyszko (Mieczylaw Kalenik). Zbyszko has sworn to avenge the death of Danusia's mother at the hands of the invaders. When he is captured by the Teutonic hordes, it is Danusia who comes to his rescue. Shortly thereafter, Danusia and Jurandt are captured and tortured. Zbyszko embarks upon a long odyssey to rescue his beloved, but by the time he finds her, she has been driven insane. After three hours' worth of Knights of the Black Cross (Polish title: Krzyzacy), the viewer might also feel a little touched in the head. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Polish writer/director Aleksander Ford's Eighth Day of the Week takes an astonishing anti-Communist stance--the first of many that would compel Ford to leave his homeland after a general governmental crackdown on personal expression in 1968. Zbigniew Cybulski and Sonja Ziemann play a married couple who fall through the cracks of Red bureaucracy in Warsaw. The film does not endeavor to preach, merely to present a matter-of-fact glance at how little the individual matters when confronted with mountains of red tape. Upon its completion in 1958, the government refused to allow Eighth Day of the Week to be shown in Poland; it would not been seen anywhere until its European release one year later. According to the editors of Blockbuster Guide to Movies and Video, most existing prints have been dubbed into German. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second of Polish director Andrzej Wajda's WWII trilogy, following Pokolenie (A Generation) and preceding Popiol I diament (Ashes and Diamonds), Kanal is the most physically harrowing of the set. Based on the experiences of Jerzy Stefan Stawinski, a Polish patriot who participated in the battle for Warsaw in 1939 as an 18-year-old and in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the action takes place in the last week of the 63-day Uprising, as the Nazis hunt down what few freedom fighters remain. A band of Poles takes to the sewers in hopes of escaping, but they become disoriented by the darkness and the fumes of the waist-deep filth. Whenever the Poles try to emerge for orientation or relief, the Germans are there to greet them with a hail of bullets. Kanal was Wajda's coming-out film; it won two prizes at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival and clicked with both European and American audiences, in spite of its grueling story and pessimistic tone. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi