Jerzy Skolimowski Movies
Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski is one of the most original and innovative of the eastern European filmmakers. He is also one of the few to find success in the West. As a youth, the talented Skolimowski published several short stories, two poetry volumes, and was a jazz musician. At the University of Warsaw, he studied anthropology, history, and literature. He entered films after a chance encounter with renowned director Andrzej Wajda. Skolimowski helped him write the script for Innocent Sorcerers (1960). Then, with Wajda's help, he enrolled in the Film School at Lodz where he and classmate Roman Polanski wrote the script for the latter's debut feature Knife in the Water (1962). It took Skolimowski four years to make his own first feature, Identification Marks: None (1964), a combination of several short student films starring himself as an anti-hero -- a figure that would appear in many subsequent films, which centered on his society's youthful outsiders, and contained strong political messages as in Hands Up! (1967), an anti-Stalinist film that was banned and not shown in the West until 1981 at Cannes. He gained international renown for his 1967 film Le Depart, which won the Golden Bear award at that year's Berlin Film Festival. An invitation to make a western European film The Adventures of Gerard a big-budget British-Swiss production that featured an all-star cast ensued. Unfortunately, the film was neither indicative of the director's real talent, nor was it commercially successful. In subsequent films Skolimowski has matured into a formidable talent with works such as Deep End (1970), and The Shout (1978). His most commercially successful film is Moonlighting (1982), a penetrating look into the origins of political repression inspired by the declaration of martial law in Poland in December 1981. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1965
An aging boxer makes a scant living as a prizefighter in this drama. A former college buddy helps the fighter get an engineering job. Still the lure of the ring is strong, and when the fellow learns that his factory has a boxing team, he eagerly signs up. During a major fight, he ends up winning when his opponent is a no-show. Later the late fighter arrives and demands half of the prize money as he was paid not to show up. The protagonist refuses to share and the two end up duking it out in the ring. The aging fighter is no match for the opponent and is badly beaten. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jerzy Skolimowski
- 1965
In this drama, a budding ichthyologist studies at a university to try to avoid the draft. At the last moment he then relents and enlists. He has only a few hours to organize his personal life before he must undertake basic training. He goes to his apartment; there he finds his sick dog and has it put to sleep. He then attempts to make love to a housewife, not his own. Finally he goes to the store where his own wife works and discovers that she is really a streetwalker. The young man attempts to prepare himself for spending the next two years in the military as he walks toward the train station. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elzbieta Czyzewska, Jerzy Skolimowski, (more)
Noz w Wodzie was not only Polanski's first feature-length film, but it also marked the first screen appearance of Polish actor Zygmunt Malanowicz who played a young student. In fact, the only experienced thespian in the featured trio is Leon Niemczyk as Andrzej, the self-important, somewhat arrogant husband of Kataryna. Andrzej and Kataryna pick up the student as he is hitchhiking and invite him to join them on their boat for an outing. As the threesome head out to open water, the husband and the student start a kind of jealous interaction that keeps Kataryna mildly amused. What began as a macho sparring ends up in a fight that has the student falling overboard and the husband swimming to shore for help. But appearances are deceiving, as the husband will soon discover. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, (more)
Award-winning Polish director Andrzej Wajda guides this effective tale about a young doctor and the woman he finds when he did not know he was looking. The doctor is attractive enough to have women after him all of the time, which may seem like a great problem for most men but is unsettling to him. Just when he has had it with women coming on to him, he meets a lively young femme who at first seems no different than all the rest. She manages to get into his room where the two of them spend their time talking -- a novelty, without a doubt. But then the doctor has to leave to meet some friends, and when he realizes that he wants to see this interesting woman again, she seems to have disappeared -- or so he thinks. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tadeusz Lomnicki
