677. Czlowiek z zelaza

Czlowiek z zelaza
Man of Iron
1981
Directed by Andrzej Wajda

I had seen this film before viewing its predecessor, Man of Marble.  Even with the newly discovered context, this was nowhere near as impressive as the previous movie.

The film follows the shipyard workers strike in Gdansk.  The son of Mateusz Birkut, the protagonist of the first movie, is heavily involved in the protests.  A journalist is given the job of slandering him on behalf of the Communist party.   A couple things from the first film are cleared, although I personally enjoyed the ambiguity of that movie and wasn't really searching for edification.

This feels a lot more like a Polish history lesson that the other movie.  I felt like that film at least tried to be entertaining while this time around the filmmakers just wanted to get their message out there and then drop mic out of this.  I suppose I do still appreciate Wajda's technique but he kind of lost me on this one.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

Written in only six days.

623. Man of Marble

Man of Marble
1977
Directed by Andrzej Wajda

Well that was a bit of a chore.  I am having a lot of trouble finding these movies lately.  I tried and failed to find Bigger Than Life for my sister today.  I feel so impotent. I was able to find the first half of this movie (without subtitles of course) but had to go to a shady Polish site to get the rest.  Once again, I had to download a separate file of subtitles and scroll along as I go.  The struggle continues.

Agnieszka is a young director who is making her thesis film on Mateusz Birkut.  Birkut was a bricklayer who was hailed as a hero by the Party for his record breaking brick quotas.  How could a film about a bricklayer not be interesting?  That's gold right there.  Anyway, Birkut has fallen from grace and his current whereabouts are unknown.

Of course, I have to bitch about the running time.  It's tradition, after all.  Two hours and forty minutes. It was quite frankly exhausting, mostly because it was difficult keeping up with the subtitles.  That being said, I am glad I watched this.  I suppose Mateusz was the real main character of the film, but even so, I loved the focus on Agnieszka.  When was the last time we had a positive female character in one of our movies?  Annie Hall...maybe.  Princess Leia?  Regardless, it's not very common.  But here we had a woman in charge of something and she wasn't a sociopath!  Yay!

From a historical point of view, this was definitely an interesting piece.  How they got this past the sensors, I have no idea.  Definitely not a favorite, but still worth seeing.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Because of the anti-communist material, the film was in development hell since 1962.

335. Popiół i diament

Popiol i diament
Ashes and Diamonds
1958
Directed by Andrzej Wajda

I delayed writing about this movie even though I finished it last night because I was unsure what my opinion was.  Now, it is the next morning and I am convinced that I did enjoy it but there are still some pretty big flaws that stopped it from being a favorite.

This is the story of Maciek, a Resistance fighter whose father is a communist.  Maciek is ordered to kill a Communist leader but soon realizes that his target was a fellow soldier.  Oh yeah and there is kind of a half assed love story because I guess the filmmakers realized that the movie was a total sausage fest.

The star of this film, Zbigniew Cybulski, was supposedly, before he died in a horrific railroad accident, hailed as the Polish James Dean.  I actually think that he was a much better actor than Dean and his look is arguably even more iconic.  When the film started, he looked so familiar that I thought I had already seen the film.  I realized I only felt that way because his style has been imitated to death since then.

Another great thing about this movie was the cinematography.  The blood in the sheets scene was absolutely beautiful.  However, this film has been praised for the death scene but I feel like I had seen a lot of similar murders before this movie; off the top of my head, Man of the West had a death just like this one.

Like I said, the love story is kind of unnecessary and rushed.  This film definitely should have been longer in order to spend more time exploring different relationships, although I hesitate to say that because some parts of the movie seemed to drag.

So yeah, this film is a bit of a question mark for me but I would still recommend it, if only for Zbigniew and the wonderful cinematography.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Martin Scorsese showed this movie to Leonardo DiCaprio when they were making The Departed since both films explored similar themes.

Sunglasses sales skyrocketed after the release of this movie.